


Sour Patch Kid

by NiteFang



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-14
Updated: 2012-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 02:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 97,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiteFang/pseuds/NiteFang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're a Sour Patch Kid! You're a sour jerk with a weird haircut, but deep inside, you're a big, sweet softie who wants to sing love songs to—" <br/>"Brit, you better shut up before I flambe your cat!" <br/>"—Rachel Berry for the rest of your life!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Request

“SHIT!”

Only it wasn’t just _one syllable_. No, no, no. The word was _prolonged_ like one of Rachel’s high notes—complete with eyes clenched shut and hands gripping the mic tightly.

Only it wasn’t a mic being gripped tightly; it was a steering wheel. And instead of Rachel keening (in all the wrong ways) in his ears, it was a siren.

Shit shittingly shitting fucking shit.

He seriously considered flooring the accelerator and getting a head start on that “get the hell outta Lima” plan he had for after graduation, but he could almost hear that _voice_ squeaking in his ear about how him skipping town would somehow lead to another Wall Street crash or something. Jesus, when you get her started, she doesn’t stop.

And because he wanted to stick around so he could apply _that_ principle to a _very different_ situation, he sighed and pulled over in front of the local pet shop.

Puck was so _fucking_ screwed.

He’d been toeing the line ever since juvie, and even though he’d promised he’d never do something stupid enough to land his studly ass back in there, that didn’t stop him from committing a couple of… _mild indiscretions_. Of course, that shit _piles up_ , and considering all the dumbass moves he’d accumulated during his entire bizarre relationship with Zises, he went from _toeing_ the line to standing right on it. One more problem—big or small—with the law, and his ass would be back in juvie. And even _speeding_ would constitute as that _“one more problem.”_

Oh, so _fucking_ screwed.

With every step the cop took toward him, Puck could almost hear the sounds of the prison cell rolling and slamming shut. He could hear the punches, kicks, and even the big and small squirts of blood. He dropped his head against his steering wheel, kind of hoping that he’d hit himself _just right_ to trigger an aneurysm or something.

The cop had just knocked on the window, and then out of freaking NOWHERE, someone starts shrieking. Like serious blood-curdling, _a-fucking-zombie-is-gnawing-on-my-jugular_ kind of shrieking. At first, Puck was like: “Well, at least the cops are here.” And that immediately turned into: “WHAT THE FUCK?! BRITTANY?!”

To which he actually rolled the window down and hollered, “WHAT THE FUCK?! BRITTANY?!”

The girl was _sprinting_ down the street, her cat in a death-grip in her arms. God only knows where she’d popped out from, but when her ear-piercing screeches turned into actual words, Puck couldn’t care less where she’d come from just that she actually showed up.

“Officer, you have to let Puck go! He was just trying to help me get Lord Tubbington to the vet!”

The cop, who’d just gotten out of his patrol car, was staring at Brittany with an actual look of fear.

Okay, Brittany’s a hot cheerleader with a semi-weird fashion sense (which somehow managed to turn Berry’s wardrobe into Lima high fashion) and talks to her cat like it’s a fucking human being in disguise. Why in the hell would a cop be afraid of—

“Oh, Officer Hartwell!” she cried, recognizing the guy. “Did that chunk of your leg ever grow back?”

Oh, _that’s_ why.

The cop _legit_ paled and started to back away. He turned to Puck and went, “It’s okay! It’s okay! Just make sure you get the girl and the c-cat to the vet! I’m just gonna…j-just…”

And then he hauled ass back to his patrol car, almost tripping over his own feet, and pulled a loud, screeching U-turn to get the hell away.

Puck turned back to Brittany, who’d just skirted around the front of the truck and hopped into the shotgun seat, petting her cat and cooing apologies for practically strangling it a few seconds ago. He didn’t know whether to be freaked the fuck out or relieved as hell that his ass wasn’t about to be thrown into prison.

“What the hell was that?” Puck demanded, still glaring/staring at the blonde. “You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack.”

She blinked at him innocently. “ _Lord Tubbington_ was the one having a heart attack, but then it turned out to be heartburn.”

He looked down at the cat. It was just lying there, staring back up at him with wide, yellow eyes, giving no indication of any heart problems—attacking or burning.

But he wasn’t about to point anything out to her.

“Glad he’s feeling better then,” Puck muttered, starting up his car again and pulling away from the curb. “Where to, Brit?”

“The vet,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Lord Tubbington is germinally ill.”

Puck blinked but refused to look at her. If he looked, he was gonna laugh. “Don’t you mean _terminally_?”

“No,” she laughed. “He’s sick because of the germs in his heart. They’re setting his cells on fire. It has nothing to do with buses.”

Now Puck had come a long way from the day when he believed Finn’s bullshit about Mrs. Hudson-Hummel having prostate cancer. He’d seen a couple episodes of _House_ , so he was pretty sure heartburn didn’t actually involve cell-burning germs, but he’d tried to correct Brittany a couple of times before. He knew that it would just be a lost cause. And honestly, the fact that she knew cells were involved was enough. Her knowing anything else would be asking too much.

So he just settled for saying, “My bad.”

“So remember how you told Rachel you promised to be nicer to Jews?” she asked randomly as her fat, creepy cat started to edge its way off her lap to crawl next to Puck.

Puck glared down at the animal as it began to purr and rub against his thigh. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“What’s the opposite of Jews?”

…the fuck?

“Would it be water? Like juice would kind of be the opposite of water since juice is tasty and water isn’t?”

Oh, hell.

“Uh, yeah, Brit,” Puck mumbled, playing along as he made a sharp left turn so that the damn cat slid across the leather seat and back toward Brittany’s lap. “Why?”

“Do you think you could be nicer to Waters then? Not just Jews?”

Jesus Christ.

Puck sighed. “You mean _Gentiles_?”

“No, not just the gentle people, I mean people who aren’t Jews,” she insisted as that fucking cat made its way back to Puck’s lap.

This was gonna be one of those conversations that Puck would need either pot or beer to get through.

 “Christ, Brittany. What the fuck are you asking for?” Puck demanded, grabbing the cat by the scruff of its neck and dropping it back on Brittany’s lap. Thing was like thirty pounds, _damn_.

“I want you to be nicer to the gleeks,” she said simply, holding the damn cat up and cooing at its nose as it batted her face with sheathed paws. “We’re your family, so you should be, like, super-nice to us. Even if we’re not Jews or Gentiles or un-gentle people. We’re all really mean to each other, but maybe if they see you being really sweet, they’ll start being nicer to each other too.”

He couldn’t fault her logic even though she jacked up the whole Jews-and-Gentiles thing. But _still_!

“Brit, I’m the _Puckerone_!” he argued. “You can’t ask me to do shit like that. You can ask me to beat up anyone who picks on the gleeks because that’s as nice as I go, but to _actually_ do something nice is just...out of the question!”

“But you’re _super nice_!” she protested, her face crumpling into sadness.

Oh, shit.

No one—and I mean _no one_ —can stand against Brittany S. Pierce Tears™ . It’s damn-near im- _fucking_ -possible.

“You care about Lord Tubbington enough to come with me to take him to the vet, you sang for Rachel in glee two years ago, you gave up _football_ for Rachel, you helped make the music for ‘My Cup’,and you wrote that song for Finn at nationals.”

 _HOLY FUCKING HELL_ —

“ _What?!_ ” Puck screeched at an octave he didn’t know he had. He almost drove up onto the curb, and he quickly had to lower his speed and keep his eyes fixed to the road before he got pulled over again. “What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“I heard you humming the song on our way to New York,” she explained simply. “You wrote it before we got there, but you gave it to Finn so he could sing it with Rachel. I wish you sang it instead though. I like your voice better. Could you put ‘Need You Now’ on iTunes? I really want it on my iPod. I need evidence for my Puckleberry argument, and that song would totally help me win my case.”

“The fuck?! What is up with you people and that jacked-up name?! Shit’s _humiliating_!”

“It’s adorable! Just like how you and Rachel would be adorable!”

“Where the hell is this shit coming from, Pierce?! One second we’re talking about being nice to people, and now you’ve hopped onto this Puckleberry bandwagon. You and fucking _Mike_...”

She actually reached out and laid a hand on his arm. He stopped at a red light and turned to see her serious expression.

“It’s because Puckleberry is endgame.”

Puck missed a beat before going, “That _still_ doesn’t explain the massive conversation jump, yo.”

“I want you to be nicer to the gleeks so that Rachel will see that you’re not just _Puck_ , and she’ll see that you’re just as nice as Finn and come back to you,” Brittany explained slowly for Puck’s benefit.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

How he manages to get caught up in these kinds of situations is just _beyond him_.

“Dude, as _foolproof_ of a plan as that sounds, I don’t think that’s gonna be the direction I take to win Berry’s heart,” Puck said, knowing that denying whatever weird little jolts he felt for Rachel Berry would just fly over Brittany’s head anyway.

Brittany pouted. “What’s your plan for Operation Puckleberry then?”

 _Operation Puckle_ —oh, _hell_ no.

“One: stop calling it ‘Puckleberry.’ Two: it’s not a fucking clandestine operation, okay? It’s simple enough. Three: all I do is follow the midget to New York because we all know Finn’s not gonna.”

“What midget? Why wouldn’t Finn follow a midget to New York? Midgets are cute, but I prefer to call them munchkins—”

“I’m talking about _Berry_ , Brittany! Berry is a midget!”

“Really? But she keeps saying that she falls under average height. I don’t know why she’s falling, but—”

“I am going to follow _Rachel_ to _New York_ because _Finn_ won’t do it,” Puck enunciated slowly, making sure that he didn’t use any metaphors, nicknames, or whatever else that could potentially jack up Brittany’s train of thought.

“So you’re gonna wait ‘til after graduation? That sucks. True love can’t wait, Puck.”

Puck pulled into the parking lot of the vet’s office, turned off the engine, and because he had nothing better to do and because he kind of owed her, the two of them jumped out of the truck.

“Look, going after Berry while Finn is around is like trying to chase after Scooby Doo, who’s dead-set on chasing after a van packed with Scooby Snacks,” he said, using a comparison he knew Brittany could digest. “It’s useless ‘cause she won’t be paying attention to any of the shit I try to pull. She’ll be too busy tanning herself with the sunshine that apparently shoots out of Hudson’s ass.”

“Too much sun gives you skin cancer, didn’t you know?”

He stopped walking and stared after her as she walked into the vet’s office.

 _Damn._ Maybe she’s not stupid. She just functions on an entirely different brain level.

“Are you coming in?” she called back. “Lord Tubbington needs all the moral support he can get. Doctors give him indecision.”

He didn’t bother saying ‘indigestion’ as he followed her through the doors.

“Well, tell that to Berry,” he muttered as Brittany lined up to check in with the secretary. “She’s the one who’s got her heart set on getting herself some of that skin cancer.”

“We need to give her some sunscreen,” she said, narrowing her eyes in concentration as if she was planning some major coup. “You need to surround her with mirrors or tin foil to keep the sunshine away even though sunshine is nice and warm and pretty.”

And now he lost her.

They sat in the waiting area as Brittany continued to stroke her cat, who continued to stare longingly at Puck, who continued to keep himself from jumping up and driving away from this girl.

Berry was like a loud, obsessive crazy. Brittany was like a flower-growing-on-metal kind of crazy—pretty, but doesn’t make one lick of sense. If that comparison made any sense to begin with...

Shit, it’s infectious!

He zoned out for a second, but as soon as he got back, she was still yammering on about sunscreen and how him being nice would somehow deflect the niceness of Finn’s ass-rays and distract Berry long enough for her to pay attention to him—he totally paraphrased that and had to use even the latent parts of his brain to wheedle out that explanation from her discombobulated speech.

Shit, it even brought out a few big words he’s been suppressing (again with the big words!) since fucking _prom_ when his first-ever Rachel Berry Lecture had flown over the actual Rachel Berry’s head since she got back with fucking Finn anyway. Goddamnit.

“...why you should be nice to the gleeks. There! That’s how you’re gonna pay me back,” she announced jubilantly.

WAIT, _what_?!

“What?! I thought you bailed me outta that ‘cause you actually needed a ride to the vet!” Puck hissed.

Brittany frowned in confusion. “I didn’t bail you out. I _did_ need a ride to the vet’s. You being nice to the gleeks is your return-favor for me helping you and Rachel get together.”

“What? But we’re not even together. You can’t cash in a favor without even doing yours first,” Puck pointed out incredulously.

“But you and I will be working together to help you achieve Puckleberry, so technically you helping me will be helping yourself to help you and Rachel. Like passing the duck.”

He only registered the last part of her explanation.

“Don’t you mean pass the _buck_?” Puck sighed.

She frowned and cocked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t want to give you money. Ducks are nicer. They can love and cuddle with you in ways that money can’t.”

And with that, Puck stood up. “Okay, I think I’ve filled my Brittany Pierce quota for the year. I’m gonna take a nap in the truck. Wake me up when you’re ready to go.”

“See?! You’re _nice_! Instead of just ditching me and going to Rachel’s house to see if you can get her to make you cookies, you’re gonna stay and wait for me!” she cried despite the fact that everyone in the vet’s waiting room was legit _watching the show_.

He leveled dark look at her before turning on his heel and heading for the door.

“You’re like Sour Patch Kids! First they’re sour, then they’re sweet! You’re a mean, _sour_ jerk who likes throwing people away in dumpsters, but deep inside—”

“Brit, you better shut the hell up before I flambé your cat!”

“—you’re just a big, _sweet_ softie who wants to sing love songs to—”

“I have a lighter in my pocket!”

“— _Rachel Berry_ for the rest of his life!”

Puck blushed a furious red, completely offended that he was being compared to fucking _candy_. (And more than a little embarrassed that the freaking girl just screamed his biggest secret to everyone in the vet’s office.) “Pierce! Shut the hell up! I’m not a softie, I’m not a _kid_ , and the only time I’m sweet is when someone’s sucking on my—”

“You’re a Sour Patch Kid!” she shrieked. “You owe me, so you have to go by that name! Now go sleep so you can dream of ways to help the gleeks! Then we can discuss your strategies on the way home! And even Lord Tubbington can help once he gets his fire extinguisher medicine!”

FUCK. HIS. LIFE.


	2. Hummel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should’ve started this story sometime in the summer because now that it’s coinciding with the series, I feel obligated to incorporate some of the elements of the new season into this. So it’s still definitely AU because no way in hell am I getting rid of Sam, but you’ll see whatever few snippets of the previous night’s episode that I felt like shoving in here.

He thought she was joking.

It’s not that he thinks everything Brittany says should just be completely disregarded. Nah, chick had some good points. Like the whole skin-cancer-with-Finn’s-ass-rays. But the whole being-nice-to-the-gleeks-to-catch-Berry’s-attention?

Dude, that was bullshit.

He’d need a Broadway stage and a live, international broadcast to get Rachel Berry to pay attention to him. Okay, he managed to convince her to have that party and drag her to that Barbravention, but all those had some underlying connection to Finn in that she either felt compelled to do it to prove something to him or that she dwelled more on his words than anything.

For Puck to have another chance with her, he’d need to convince her that being with him would save Finn’s life or something, and that was just a fucked-up scenario that he _never_ ever wanted to think about again.

And even if he _wanted_ to be a nice guy, no one would take him seriously! He could bake cookies for some dying faculty or staff member, and Figgins would shut down the whole school, thinking they were laced with anthrax or something! He already had a rep for _special pastries_ thanks to the bake sale incident of 2009, so it’s not like spiked foods are completely unthinkable as far as he’s concerned.

 _Regardless_ , man. He’s just not a nice person. Hasn’t been for the last eleven fucking years, and he wasn’t a little cherub before then either.

So why the _fuck_ did he find himself listening to Kurt rant about his “fashion portfolio” for the weird fashion college he was trying to get into?

He’d planned on just taking a nap while everyone was waiting for Schue to come in.

_Planned._

Berry (in another one of those _fucking_ skirts that he wanted to pull off with his teeth—scratch that, one of those skirts that _hid_ those _fucking_ panties he wanted to pull off with his teeth) was near the baby grand, talking to Finn, who had this glazed-over expression. Santana and Brittany were sitting off to one side doing whatever it is chicks do. Sam was on his other side, yammering on about the rumors of some leaked script of the _Avatar_ sequel. Quinn wasn’t there because she was in her rebellious phase (and Puck can _legit_ call it that because he fucking _knows_. He’s like the _expert,_ bitches). Lauren, of course, was out, but it’s not like he didn’t see that coming. It was a pretty slow descent after prom, but it hit the bottom soon enough. And he had totally run out of cash to supply her with her damn Cadbury eggs to keep her in glee anyway. Artie, Mike, Tina, Mercedes, and Kurt were having some sort of emergency meeting in the front row because they were all surrounding Kurt, who was wringing his little hands with his face all red.

“Blaine, of course, is a perfect model because, bias aside, he’s just a dapper, handsome specimen of a man,” Kurt rambled.

“So what’s the problem?” Mercedes asked.

Kurt grimaced as he gestured frantically with his little lady-hands.

Those were some weird hands, yo. Puck didn’t have anything against gays or anything, but the dude had some _small_ fucking hands. It’s _weird_.

“It’s just that he’s _too dapper_!” he finally blurted out frantically. “I can only put him in so many blazers before he kills himself! I need a high fashion model! Not even mentioning the fact that my ultimate goal is to get him _out_ of that damned Warblers blazer!”

Puck grimaced. “Dude!”

“Not like that!” Kurt screeched, blushing bright red. “I’m trying to persuade him to come here to McKinley, but couple that nagging with me asking him to put on outfit after outfit? I don’t want to give him more of a building excuse to break up with me!”

“What about Mike?” Tina offered helpfully. “Mike looks _amazing_ in a suit.”

“W- _What?_ No, I have a-a—” Mike stuttered.

“Calm yourself, Michael,” Kurt interrupted Mike’s useless stutters. “I need someone more broad-shouldered.”

“Hello? Use Finn,” Artie pointed out dryly. “You two live together. Shouldn’t he be your first choice?”

Kurt shot her a longsuffering look. “He’s too _tall_! I’m creating _high fashion pieces_ , not rags for Casual Male XL. I need someone tall and broad-shouldered with a model-esque air of brooding.”

“Trouty-Mouth can do brooding,” Santana called over from the other end of the risers. “Make him pucker those lips and you’ve got a legit pout.”

“No, Santana, I’d rather the attention be on my designs, not Sam’s heavily-endowed facial features,” Kurt said a little disgustedly.

“Hey!” Sam protested, turning around to glare at Kurt and Satan.

“I said ‘heavily-endowed!’” Kurt cried defensively. “I meant it in the nicest, most complimenting way possible!”

“I don’t get why you’re so worried about this, Hummel,” Puck said, one eyebrow raised. “We’ve only been in school for one day.”

“Noah! Don’t chastise Kurt for wanting to get ahead and assembling his portfolio!”

“Here we go,” Puck muttered under his breath, clenching his eyes shut in preparation for another ten-minute lecture about the “Perils of Procrastination.”

She legit made him a list over the summer when she found out he wasn’t applying to any colleges. Then she actually had the balls to sit him down on the couch and _lecture him_. He wanted to snatch the paper out of her hands and eat it. Actually, he wanted to eat something _else_ a little more, but she would’ve chucked his X-Box at his head if he even said it out loud, so he wisely kept his trap shut.

Her narrowed eyes suddenly widened, and a smile burst across her face. And for a split-second, Puck actually managed to fool himself into thinking God slapped her with a vision of her future as Mrs. Rachel Puckerman and that she totally wanted to jump his bones right then and there—

Okay, no more large mocha frappes at this hour. Those little fuckers are delicious, but the sugar content? _Damn._

“I know who you could use!” Berry blurted out, skipping toward the group.

Puck glared at the ceiling to keep from staring at her legs and remembering how they felt rubbing up against his thighs when she straddled him in that one glorious week sophomore year. “How about a damn mannequin? Jesus.”

“He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and he’s an _expert_ on the brooding look,” she listed off. “Plus, you already know him!”

Wait...

Oh, shit _—_

“Noah can do it!”

“Shut the hell up, Berry! You don’t get to volunteer people!” Puck blurted out.

“Hey!” Finn protested in a rare-but-still-half-assed attempt to stick up for his girlfriend.

Berry ignored him and continued to glare at Puck. “Would you like to abandon a fellow gleek in need, Noah? Are you really so heartless? Because I’m sure refusing your help could also be considered a form of bullying because—”

“Holy shit on crackers! I haven’t thrown him in a dumpster in _years_ —that’s as non-bullying as I can get!”

“Just because you’ve simply stopped terrorizing students doesn’t mean you’ve atoned for your sins,” she insisted, eyes narrowing with his profane expressions.

“I _apologized_!”

“And now you need to supplement your apology with a grand gesture of friendship. You and Kurt are amicable enough in and outside glee, but you two have the potential to be more!”

 _“WHAT?!”_ Puck and Kurt chorused in perfect harmony.

“Oh, you know I don’t mean it like that!” she snapped, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m saying that perhaps the bonds of our glee friendships can be further strengthened by outside interaction.”

Puck took a second to process her words and how Brittany was shooting him a super-smug look before he glowered at her. “Okay, I’m not completely against us all hanging out and shit, but male bonding thing sure as hell doesn’t involve _clothes_. Male bonding means beer, football, or chicks—or all three.”

“I agree,” Kurt pitched in, grimacing. “I will admit that Puck would make a _perfect model_ for my designs, but I didn’t bother entertaining the idea that he’d help so I didn’t—”

“Then it’s settled!” Berry announced, clapping her hands and grinning like an idiot. “What time should Noah come over, Kurt?”

And because he’d had a thing for her ever since their one single dance at prom last year (and because Brittany was staring at him with those big blue eyes and mouthing “Puckleberry”), he found himself standing at the Hudson-Hummel doorstep at exactly 5 PM that very afternoon.

Finn opened the door with a half-smirk that Puck legit wanted to _carve off his face with a spoon_. As if it wasn’t gonna be _fucking awkward_ enough that he was being used as a Ken doll, Finn was gonna be hanging around and _watching_.

“Hummel, these had better be some badass fucking outfits or you’re gonna be upgraded from dumpsters to Port-A-Potties,” Puck growled as he stomped down to the basement with Finn.

“If you’re expecting metal spikes and an obscene amount of leather, you’ll be sorely disappointed,” Kurt said, appearing at the bottom of the steps, measuring tape slung around his neck like a scarf. “I’m not designing for KISS.”

Puck rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. If I see even a fucking _millimeter_ of lace, I’m gonna introduce you to the once-in-lifetime experience of a Port-A-Potty cocktail.”

“Dude! Like in _Jackass 3D_?” Finn asked excitedly from the couch.

Kurt’s thoroughly horrified expression meant he must’ve been forced to watch that movie because of Finn and Burt.

Puck looked at Kurt with a very evil—very _Puck_ —smirk. “ _Exactly_ like in Jackass 3D.”

Kurt tried to wipe the terror off his face, but it didn’t work. “You wouldn’t. You don’t even have the resources.”

Puck laughed as he walked to the table where a fucking _mountain_ of fabric was sitting. “Trust me, Hummel. Whatever resources I _don’t_ have, I can get.”

Kurt swallowed and glared at Finn, who was snickering. “If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me, Finn Hudson. You’re personally responsible for my well-being.”

Finn’s snickering immediately morphed into a full grimace as he remembered the promise he’d made. Then he turned to Puck and gave him a shrug that said, _Dude, no cocktail._

Puck scowled and lifted a purple jacket out of the pile, slowly turning to level a very dark glare at Kurt.

“I am not _Prince._ Ain’t no _fucking_ way.” 

The squeak of wheels suddenly alerted him to Artie’s presence on the other side of the room. He was armed with an SLR camera and a devilish smile. “ _Way_.”

Puck spun around to give an even _darker_ glare at Kurt again. “What the fuck is that, Hummel?!”

“It’s a _portfolio_ , Puck!” Kurt huffed. “I’m not going to _drag_ you with me all the way to New York and have you strut your stuff on a runway! You’re going to be my model, so we need a camera!”

Puck tossed the jacket back onto the pile and sighed up at the ceiling. “Please tell me you got weed or booze or something ‘cause I ain’t doin’ this shit _sober_ or _lucid_.”

**~oOo~**

This is why he doesn’t do nice things. Doing nice things gets him in situations where three boys have the means to blackmail him into fucking _oblivion_.

Fortunately, Kurt did not have a hint of lace because: “Lace on males isn’t high fashion. Lace on males means _Liberace_. Or Johnny Weir. Oh, God, don’t let me go on. I’m going to have nightmares.”

Unfortunately, he had ruffles.

“Hummel, you little fucktard! I look like a goddamn flamenco dancer!”

He also had tunics.

“Where are those wigs from our _Crazy in Love_ and _Hair_ number? Slap one on me right now, and you’ve got Jewish Fabio. Fuck you.”

Apparently accessories were part of the production too.

“Get this fucking thing off! I look like a gay-ass pirate! No, no, NO, I don’t give a _fuck_ if it’s just a clip-on earring, jackass! I can’t even fucking _look_ at myself right now!”

None of them were _good_ accessories either.

“I don’t care what the fuck you call it, Hummel, that is a fucking _purse_ and if you get that thing within a two-foot radius of me, I will shove it so far up your ass that you’ll literally have the taste of leather in the back of your mouth for the rest of your life.”

Puck had to admit that some of the shoes were pretty classy. But then the ones that _weren’t_ were just… _good God_.

“Those have heels. THOSE. HAVE. HEELS. GET. THEM. AWAY. FROM. ME. _NOW_.”

And those were the just the _dress rehearsals_! They weren’t even to the _trial pictures_ yet, let alone the _actual_ pictures! And the _actual_ pictures nearly gave both Kurt _and_ Puck a coronary.

“You said _brooding_ , Hummel! I am fucking _brooding_! I don’t even need to do any fucking acting right now! What you’re trying to get me to do is _pout_ like a little _girl_! If you wanted little pouting girls, you should’ve used Hudson!”

“Fuck you, Puck!”

“See what I mean?! _Pouting little girl!_ ”

Puck knew he was a potty mouth. He used the f-bomb _at least_ ten times on a daily basis. But that night, for those _torturous_ five hours, he spewed more obscenities than he’d ever used his entire life. The amount of curse words that bombarded that basement would’ve made even Steve-O’s ears bleed.

Like, if his life was a comic book right then, the only thing in his little word or thought bubbles would be a shitload of weird symbols. He muttered them, he shouted them, _he breathed them like air_.

By the time the last picture was finally taken, Puck was out the door in one minute _flat_.

“NEVER FUCKING AGAIN, HUMMEL!” he roared as he pulled out of the driveway. “NEXT TIME, HIRE A LEGIT MODEL!”

**~oOo~**

Apparently, for all his talk, Hummel was kind of an idiot. Puck _explicitly_ told him that “no one but your damn school should ever lay eyes on those pictures,” but apparently, the _gleeks_ were in a category all on their own. They were _transcendent_ of all others.

They didn’t fall under the category of _no one_. Puck would’ve had to specify “no one _including the gleeks_.”

Hummel was going to die. And he was going to die because of a stroke, a broken neck, or drowning—any one of those options were plausible when tossed into the air in a poop-filled Port-A-Potty.

“Damn, Puck. You should think about going into the business,” Santana said, smirking at the picture of the tunic outfit. “You’d be perfect in the lead role of _Pirates XXX_.”

Puck grimaced. “And how do you know that, you porno?”

“‘Cause it was lodged next to your full-sized poster of a naked—”

Okay, calm yourselves. He didn’t _actually_ stash porn movies and posters of naked girls, but he wasn’t about to let that nonsense go on with Berry in the room.

“Go crawl back into the depths of hell, Satan,” he cut her off.

She scoffed and held up the one of him holding the murse. “Babe, _you’re_ the one going to hell. This is, like, fashion Holocaust.”

“Santana!” Berry gasped. “Not only is that an absolutely offensive—”

“Oh, yank that microphone stand outta your ass, Berry. It’s just an expression.”

“Satan, the only reason my fist isn’t carving a hole in your face is ‘cause—”

“I’m a girl, whatever, I know.”

“No, it’s ‘cause we’re on school property, and I’m not gonna get expelled because of your STD-packed ass.”

“Oh, go screw yourself, Fuckerman. You’ve tapped my glorious ass so many times you’ve got your own feast of STD’s!”

“OKAY! Now that we’re all aware of whom none of us should _ever_ engage in a sexual liaison with, let’s go back to the matter of designs!” Kurt interjected, waving the pictures around like it was gonna fan away the previous conversation.

“In all seriousness, though, lady fingers, some of this is absolute shit,” Santana said bluntly. She held up the picture of the outfit with the _mauve-not-purple_ jacket. “You’re, like, fashion Hitler, and Puckerman would be your Gestapo or SS or something.”

“Santana, while it is impressive that you seem to be generally knowledgeable of history, I would _please_ ask you to refrain from making these comparis—”

“Christ, RuPaul, is that microphone stand your actual _spine_? I still have my voodoo doll of you, you know. And I still got razors left in my hair. Don’t make me use that shit again.”

“Lopez, would you just shut the hell up?! Can you ever open your mouth without insulting someone?!”

“Only during sex, _pendejo_. And why do _you_ care? Is this another one of your Jews-gotta-stick-together shit? ‘Cause it’s _Finnocence’s_ job to stand up for Man-Hands.”

“Santana, stop calling her ‘Man-Hands!’” Finn finally interjected.

“That doesn’t _count_ , Sasquatch,” Santana drawled. “You shouldn’t have to be prompted.”

“BACK TO THE TASK AT HAND!” Kurt nearly shrieked, turning to the others. “Guys, a little help here?!”

“All right, Finn, Santana, we can argue about the proper timing of verbal attacks and counterattacks, but our primary focus right now should be Kurt,” Berry said diplomatically.

Santana rolled her eyes and smacked her lips as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in the seat. “Whatever, gremlin. You want me to be nice? I’ll be nice. Kurt? Your designs need some serious plastic surgery. Get to it.”

“And we all know you’re the expert on plastic surgery,” Puck muttered under his breath.

“Don’t act like you don’t like them, Puck,” Santana scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You—”

“That shit’s not kosher, Satan— _literally_. If you had, like, breast cancer and you had to get your boobs out and now you want them back or something, sure. But who wants to suck on plastic? Not me.”

“LET’S NOT START SOMETHING ELSE!” Kurt screeched in frustration.

Puck just cocked an eyebrow and leaned back in his seat as he impassively watched the gleeks try to convince Kurt that some—well, _most_ —of the outfits really _were_ shit. Even Schue, who was sitting at the piano trying to come up with a whole new year of crap assignments, was grimacing as Kurt described some bizarre, allegedly-high-fashion outfit.

The constant stream of yammering turned into a dull roar as Puck settled into a few seconds’ nap before Schue could shut everyone up and launch into how this was gonna be _their year_. It had been _their year_ for the past two years, and obviously that shit wasn’t working. Puck was legit on the very edge of sleep when something poked him in the shoulder.

At first he thought it was either Sam or Mike trying to discreetly piss him off again, but when he slowly raised one eyelid, he saw big brown eyes and the most epic nose he’d ever seen in his life—the nose he almost lost last year because of some _more_ dumbfuckery.

“What do _you_ think, Noah?”

“I think I wanna sleep. Leave me alone, woman.”

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly and rolled her eyes. “I mean about Kurt’s designs. You were the model. What did you think about the material and the fit? Would you actually wear some of his pieces?”

Puck opened his other eye and tried not to sigh. His whole “wait-‘til-New-York-to-make-a-move-on-her” plan was really hard to stick to if she kept doing crap like that—crap like asking and _caring_ about his opinion about things.

Instead of throwing her over his shoulder and shoving the lyrics of “Jar of Hearts” down her throat like he really wanted to, he just shrugged and closed his eyes again.

“Some of the shirts were a’ight. I’d look like a BAMF on the red carpet,” he muttered.

He could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke again. “I’m sure you would, Noah. I saw some of the pictures. You looked very suave despite that _atrocious_ mauve jacket.”

“And that goddamn murse,” he added darkly.

She huffed, and Puck smirked. “Noah, you really need to—”

He opened his eyes and turned to cut her off. “Tone down on the cussin’. Baby, I _know_. Calm yourself. Didn’t we already have a conversation about my badass version of the English language?”

Her eyes dropped to the floor. “Well, it was more of an offhand comment than an actual conversation because you immediately launched into a lecture about my personal life, which—”

“Completely flew over your head, by the way.”

Well, this conversation took a very wrong turn.

Her expression fell and she glanced at Finn, who was full-on grimacing at whatever Kurt was saying while also staring at the purple pianos that were rolling into the classroom.

“Noah—”

“Forget it.”

“No, we’re not forgetting anything. You’re the one who brought—”

“And now I’m the one dropping it.”

“Well, frankly, it’s too late for that. We need to—”

“Not gonna talk about it, Berry.”

“Yes, we—”

“No.”

“You don’t have the right—”

“First Amendment. Yes, I do. Now shut up.”

“You can’t tell me—”

“Oh, look at that! Just did. Shut it.”

“No—”

“Shut.”

“You need to stop—”

_“Gnome.”_

_“Noah—”_

“Drop it.”

“No, we—”

“Do I need to put my hand over your mouth again?”

“That is so unsani—”

“What are you? In second grade? Jesus, Berry, it’s not like I wash my hands in amoeba and bacteria.”

“STOP INTERRUPTING ME!” she finally shrieked in fury.

The conversation in the room came to an abrupt halt as everyone turned to stare at her. She and Puck had been speaking in low tones, and the others had been pretty engrossed in Kurt’s explanation that he was designing for both Lady Gaga and her alter ego, Joe Calderone (which explained _so much_ , by the way), that they didn’t even realize Berry and Puck were talking. Even the guys rolling in the three funky-ass-colored pianos stopped and stared.

Except for Brittany, of course, who was totally planning on going home and reporting all of the day’s Puckleberry moments to Lord Tubbington. He wasn’t a complete fan just yet because of his lingering feelings for Puck, but after a very thorough analysis of the potential in the relationship, Brittany was beginning to win him over. After all, she’d learned how to be a hopeless romantic from him.

Berry’s face was red and her eyes were narrowed, and Puck _totally_ had a mini-daydream where she was red and her eyes were narrowed—but for _all the right reasons_.

“I don’t understand why you constantly insist on never letting me get a word in! It’s rude and—”

“It’s the only way to keep you from going on and on, midget,” he said calmly, still not breaking out of his relaxed position and refusing to meet the eyes of any of the gleeks, who were now enraptured by his and Berry’s little argument. “You gotta be stopped early on before your rambling snowballs and we’ll be stuck here for the next five years.”

She glared at him. “Well, how would you feel if—”

“I was constantly interrupted? I wouldn’t give a shit. Less energy for me to waste and more to spend on _other things_ ,” he said, smirking lewdly. “I distinctly remember talking about this before too, Berry, damn. You forget _everything_ I say?”

“Just because I bring things up again doesn’t mean that I forgot—”

“Whatever, Rach. I get it. You remember everything _Finn_ says, so you don’t have enough space in your brain to remember all the Broadway songs ever composed _and_ anything anyone else says. I totally get it.”

Only he didn’t say that. Because as much fun as it would be to play shit-disturber of the group, he didn’t feel like getting in another fight with his sort-of-not-really-anymore-best-friend.

So instead, he shrugged, frowned, and then glared at the group staring at them with various degrees of interest.

“What’chu boneheads starin’ at?!” he demanded.

“If Jews got in an epic fight, would that count as World War Three?” Finn asked no one in particular.

And the conversation moved on. Then as Schue got up to…talk about _something_ involving pianos, recruiting, and “go-going” somewhere, Puck realized a couple of things.

1: He was hella hungry, so he’d have to either stop by Berry’s house to hijack some of the kugel Hiram Berry offered him at Temple the other day (a. k. a. cockblock Finn in case he and Berry were getting it on her room) or hit up the Hudson-Hummels’ for some of those awesome pizza rolls (a. k. a. cockblock Finn in case he and Berry were getting it on in _his_ room).

2: This whole be-nice-so-Berry-would-start-seeing-him-in-a-new-light would only work if Finn wasn’t in the picture so Puck was just shit out of luck until Finn decided that he still had too many feelings for Quinn. He was now officially just doing this shit for the gleeks and not because Brittany gave him those sad puppy-dog eyes when people started arguing.

3: He needed to grab that creepy-ass Jabbawockeez mask out of his dresser and find those jacked-up sleeping pills that made him start hallucinating in the middle of the night.

**~oOo~**

Something soft and warm brushed against Kurt’s face as he slept. His subconscious immediately jumped to the conclusion that Blaine was stroking his cheek, and a smile curled at the corners of Kurt’s mouth. His conclusion was further supported by the deep, throaty chuckle that followed the involuntary smile.

And then as he slowly brought himself to the world of the conscious, Kurt remembered that it was, indeed, the middle of the night, and if Blaine was there, that meant the dapper, blazer-wearing Dalton Warbler was either showing his true colors as a closeted psychotic stalker or was a vampire.

Now _that_ errant thought was _so_ out of left field that Kurt clamped his eyes shut and then snapped them open quickly. That was such a bad idea.

That was such a bad idea because it meant he opened his eyes to the stark reality that there was a white-masked man dressed in a black suit and red tie leaning over his bed and brushing his face with the strap of the satchel he’d had Puck use during the photo shoot.

Either he was having a dream where he was trapped in the modern-day, gay-version of _The Phantom of the Opera_ or he was about to be killed.

No matter what it was, there was only one logical thing to do: scream bloody murder.

Only he couldn’t seem to open his mouth because there was duct tape wrapped around his head and covered with the a soft, teal scarf that he distinctly remembered was the partner to a particular midnight blue blazer.

This was either a really terrible, traumatizing nightmare that he _really_ needed to wake up from, like, two seconds ago or he really was about to die.

So Kurt did the next logical thing he could think of: he tried to pinch himself.

And that actually brought on a wave of sharp, stinging tears because it seems that his wrists and ankles were restrained to each bedpost by various scarves in his line.

The Serial Killer of the Opera clicked his tongue and wagged a black-leather-gloved finger at him. Backing away from the bed, he crossed the room and dropped a metal box on the hardwood floor and then set a metal trash can on top of it. The man dangled the satchel over the trash can and then dropped it with a soft thud. Then he reached over to a nearby chair, where a pile of clothes were already assembled, and picked up a bright red-orange silk shirt with ruffles along the collar to toss it into the trash as well. This continued for a few minutes—the man lifted an article of clothing, some of which happened to be Kurt’s absolute favorites, and dropped them into the waste basket until the chair was empty and the basket was full.

The man leaned over the bed again and reached behind Kurt’s ear, magically producing a match. Kurt’s eyes widened past its limits as he watched the man walk back toward the waste basket, grabbing a small container of lighter fluid and pouring it onto the clothes.

Okay, so it wasn’t death by garroting, strangulation, or physical abuse. Kurt was going to be cooked with his clothes. How dramatic. Rachel would be on the edge of her seat.

And as the man struck the match against the side of his mask, Kurt just sent up a prayer to whatever god decided to pay attention—Buddha, Kali, Yaweh, Odin, Ra, Baal—and to send some message to the gleeks to either come in the nick of time and rescue him or at least remember that he wanted Babs to be sung at his funeral.

The man whistled lowly, trying to make Kurt open his eyes again. Kurt obliged and opened one eye just a tiny crack to see that the waste basket was in flames, the red orange glow flickering against the shiny, smooth surface of the mask.

And then Kurt passed out.

**~oOo~**

Kurt didn’t drop the news until after that psychotic chick with the word vomit left, but Puck kinda wished he’d waited until glee was actually, legitimately over because the reaction was just… _Jesus_.

“ARE YOU SERIOUS?!”

Okay, when Mercedes hits high notes during a song, it’s fucking epic. But when she hits high notes in a normal conversation, it’s like the sound equivalent of shoving an ice pick into your ear. And, shit, Puck’s brain had already been melted by that Sugar Motta chick a few minutes ago—he didn’t need any more stress on his eardrums.

“I’m scarred for life,” Kurt rambled, his head in his hands. “I can never watch _The Phantom of the Opera_ nor listen to any song from it without either having a mild stroke or a panic attack.”

“Lady Fingers, you were dreaming,” Santana said drolly from the top of the riser. “No one in their right mind would ever waste the time and lighter fluid to torch your shit let alone dress up to do it.”

“Then why are some of my pieces missing?” Kurt demanded shrilly. “Everything he burned is gone, but there’s no trace of him in my room. There’s no smell of smoke or any ashes—”

“It’s because you were _dreaming_ ,” Santana huffed exasperatedly, throwing her hands up into the air. “And you just probably lost all that shit you’re missing. It’s like you’re basically the one convincing yourself. I’m surrounded by stupid.”

 _She’s_ surrounded by stupid? Because no one even suspected the _juvenile delinquent_ with pyromaniac tendencies and badass ninja skills who fucking _loathed_ the clothes that were just _appropriately_ torched?

And, okay, so he wore a suit and a mask? Berry’s theatricality was totally rubbing off, but he looked _fucking awesome._ And the expression on Kurt’s face? FUCKING EPIC.

Even Brittany looked pretty pleased since she kept nodding at Puck approvingly. Of course the alleged “ditz” would be the one to realize he was the one who was trying to scare the bejesus outta Hummel.

These people…

“But there’s no way I could have misplaced—”

“Jesus! Maybe you’re sleepwalking!”

“Santana, you’re not helping,” Berry said decisively before turning to Kurt. “Kurt, maybe it’s your subconscious telling you that your line can do without some particular items. Various studies have shown a direct correlation between dreams—in particular, _nightmares_ —and how they have an underlying meaning to something you may be experiencing during your waking hours. In this case, perhaps your subconscious is suggesting that your line should follow a direction that appeals to a more general population than one specific, twisted-but-albeit-genius high-profile individual. I’m sure that colleges are looking for a well-rounded designer who can appeal to not just the avant-garde but also to the fashion plebeian.”

Kurt’s eyebrow rose as he thought about Berry’s words, and as soon as a placated (see?! He didn’t lose all those big words over the summer. He retained some shit!) expression settled on the kid’s face, Puck smirked.

He would be nice.

But he’d be nice on his own terms.


	3. Evans

_“And, baby, everything that I have is yours; you will never go cold or hungry. I’ll be there when you’re insecure; let you know that you’re always lovely. ‘Cause you are—”_

“Sa- _am_?” __

Okay, Sam was pretty chill with Brittany. They didn’t really interact much with each other aside from that one time they locked lips at Rachel’s party last year, but they were friends. It’d been a year, and he’d gotten pretty comfortable with all the gleeks. He wouldn’t go so far as to say they were all one big happy family because that was just a load of bullsh— _crap_! Just a load of _crap_! (Man, Puck was such a bad influence.)

Quinn done lost her mind. Lauren went rogue and broke Puck’s heart. Santana still scared the bejesu— _scared the crap_ —out of him because she actually _did_ show him where she hid her razors. He and Mercedes broke up sometime in mid-June because he started noticing that her eyes glazed over when he talked about _Avatar_ , _X-Men_ , and the _Avengers_ , and he figured that she only agreed to go out with him because he was the first guy that expressed any interest in her. Even though he was a dyslexic closet geek, he had feelings.

In all honesty, he couldn’t even remember when he and Puck started hanging out. It was either when Puck almost ran him over as Sam was crossing the street toward the 7-11 a day after he and ‘Cedes broke it off or it might have been a couple days after that when Puck accidentally whacked him in the face with the end of a broom at the local Wal-Mart. Either way, he and Puck actually started being buddies.

Not just let’s-chill-at-my-place-and-play-some-Call-of-Duty kind of friends (even though that was basically their default activity), they actually talked about serious stuff. And hanging out with Puck over the summer opened the doors to some pretty unknown secrets-but-not-secrets.

Turns out that Noah Puckerman and Rachel Berry? Knew each other since they were two. Puck and Diva Berry, on the other hand, have harbored some weird love-hate-I-don’t-know-just-don’t-talk-to-me kind of relationship. She was his “hot Jewish-American princess,” and he was “Noah.” That had been something else Sam learned over the course of the summer: the difference between Puck and Noah.

Puck was—God forgive him—a jackass. Noah, on the other hand, made little appearances here and there, but it made all the difference. Noah sang for Rachel, for Beth, and even opened himself up to Lauren, for crying out loud. Noah—not Santana or Artie—managed to convince Brittany that while “My Cup” should be a Grammy-award winning piece, it just didn’t convey the message the gleeks were trying to give. Noah—not Quinn or Mercedes, let alone Santana—listened when Sam would _not stop ranting_ about his self-esteem issues and his body dysmorphic disorder and his dyslexia, and when he was done, it was Noah (though it seemed more like Puck at the time) who’d looked him in the eye and said,

“Dude, you’re a fucking idiot. And I’m comfortable enough in my badass, studly manliness to say that if I was a chick, I’d hit you up. Quit freakin’ out.”

And then it was followed up by _actual Puck_ who went,

“Now don’t get any ideas because no way in hell would I go gay for your weepy ass. Fuck, I need to go chug beer or bang a cougar now—anything to flip this vag back into a—”

And we’ll just end that right there.

So Sam could say with 123% certainty that Puck was the closest thing he’d ever had to a best friend—as sad as that may have sounded—and apparently being best friends with Puck was a package deal with a few other things.

For one thing, Aviva Puckerman was now dead-set on getting Sam settled in with a nice girl since he’d been one of Quinn’s victims too. He didn’t have it as bad as Puck because, according to his ma, the poor schmuck needed to get a nice, _Jewish_ girl who looked, sounded, and acted _exactly_ like one very _not-single_ Rachel Berry. Sam liked Mrs. Puckerman—loved her like his second mother, actually—but _damn_. If that woman had been alive during 1933, she would’ve singlehandedly managed to send Hitler himself screaming for the hills. Puck wasn’t kidding when he said his ma was batshit, but when he called her badass, she’d slap the back of his head for cussing and then smirk a little proudly.

Sam also managed to get a permanent babysitter for Stevie and Stacy because Puck’s little sister, Bekah, _loved_ hanging out with those two. She was kind of like Puck in some ways, and in others, she was the complete opposite. Yet she still managed to build herself her own version of the badass Puckerman gene.

And the biggest side dish of the best-friends-with-Puck-deal was Rachel Berry herself. Previous experience during the year gave Sam a very conflicted image of Rachel. She really was—and to quote Puck—“a bitchy gremlin on crack” when she was talking about singing, dancing, or Broadway in general.  Exhibit A: her little eye-roll-inducing rant about how she didn’t feel comfortable directing herself in a play until she was forty like Barbra Streisand. That was annoying.

But Sam knew that she was only like that when it was about _her_ things—singing, dancing, Broadway, and Babs. It was like an unspoken, unofficial copyright. When it was about different things, though… She was actually really nice. Exhibit A: prom. Even if most of his attention had discreetly been on Mercedes, Rachel was actually a lot of fun. And, dude, she was _hilarious_ when you put her with Puck. The two of them together was like watching one of those comedy sketches where there was a crazy little midget ranting, rambling, and yammering on and on about something to a guy who looked like he was perpetually high.

Sam had been the one cracking up on the armchair when she came over with her “Perils of Procrastination” speech, and when she realized that Sam and his siblings spent most of their time at the Puckermans’ place, she started coming over more often, armed with a huge bag of healthy food that nearly brought Sam to tears.

She’d sometimes drag Finn with her, and they’d all chip in to try and teach Rachel how to play Call of Duty, but Hudson was pretty busy with his shifts at Sheets ‘n Things and Burt’s garage, so Sam and Puck found themselves being harangued by Rachel into hanging at the Lima Bean with Kurt and Blaine.

That...may or may not have resulted in all five of them being kicked out more than once for excessive noise. Like, dude, giving Puck caffeine was bad enough. Giving Puck, Rachel, Sam, Blaine, and Kurt caffeine was like the human equivalent of the atom bomb. Needless to say, when they absorbed Brittany, Artie, and Mercedes into their little group, they all started running out of places to hang out at (because Wal-Mart nearly gave them a lifetime ban after an incident with five kiddie wheelbarrows, eight pool noodles, and a bunch of bags of _socks_ ).

They all got pretty close actually. Well except for Santana, who was off on an internship or something, and Quinn had dropped off the map, so Sam wasn’t too brokenhearted that the _whole_ club wasn’t chilling together.

It was a pretty awesome three months despite all the problems his parents were still having over money issues. Sam had taken to either showering at Puck’s house or the school locker room because the manager of the hotel was trying to subtly get them out by cutting off the water to the shower and the tub. So that was why he was currently taking a shower at 6:30 AM. Why Brittany was there, on the other hand, he didn’t know.

Regardless of that awesome summer, he wasn’t exactly comfortable with showering in the boy’s locker room as Brittany leaned on the partition of the stall next to him with this blank-yet-bubbly smile.

Sam squeaked out the last note like a thirteen year-old and tried to cover himself up with his bottle of Irish Spring.

“Brit! What are you doing?!” he demanded.

She cocked her head to the side. “I thought your Bieber fever broke, Sam. Maybe you shouldn’t take hot showers, because it looks like you’re having a relapse.”

“It’s technically a Chris Brown song...” Sam said, turning off the hot water. “And I stopped liking the Biebs when he settled down with Selena Gomez and started dressing like a lesbian.”

“He wears a Cheerios uniform too?”

“ _What_? Never mind. Um, can I have my towel?” he asked, motioning to the white cloth wrapped around Brittany’s neck like a feather boa.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed. You’re a fine piece of real estate, and I wanna get me some land, but I have too much lawn to mow with Santana already. Maybe you and San can merge together to make one big property, and you can both be mine.”

“Okay, I don’t know if I should be a little scared, disturbed, confident, or turned on, but mostly I’m just kinda cold. Brit, can I _please_ have my towel now?”

“If you’re turned on, don’t you need the cold?”

“ _Brittany_! For the love of God, why are you in here?!” Sam blurted out, losing his patience as goosebumps started to sprout along his skin.

“Oh, Puck wanted me to tell you that he’s not coming to school today, so you’re gonna have to hitch a ride with someone else,” she said, playing with the frayed corner of his towel. “And that he’ll pick up Stevie and Stacy so you don’t have to rush to get them after Booty Camp and before football practice.”

“Okay…?” Sam muttered, raising an eyebrow in confusion. “‘Cause he couldn’t tell me that himself before?”

“He said to tell you he had large sins.”

“What…?” Talking to Brittany really should come with some sort of drug-using prerequisite because only high people could understand her. Which explained why Puck managed to get her sometimes.

Sam _sort of_ understood the whole Puck-having-large-sins because all of Lima knows of Puck’s sins, but he couldn’t figure out why that was even relevant. Did he have to go to Jewish confessional or something?

“Large sins,” she repeated, pulling her phone out of her bag and holding it up to his face. “You know how our lovable sex shark is. He spelled it wrong though.”

Sam blinked and had to reread the text about six times. Three times because of his dyslexia and then another three times because he seriously wondered how Brittany read “large sins” out of “laryngitis.”

“I hate autocorrect because it messes up my words too. Puck’s lucky I understand Puck-speak,” she said proudly as she took her phone back. “So, yeah, he told me to tell you that.”

“Uh, okay, I guess. Can I have my towel now?”

“I heard it’s healthier for you to air-dry your skin so that you don’t rub off the good skin cells. They protect you from heartburn germs. Just ask Puck and Lord Tubbington.”

**~oOo~**

It was 6:30 AM.

You know what Puck does at 6:30 AM? He sleeps.

He doesn’t wake up until the last possible second or until Bekah explodes into the room and starts using him as a human trampoline so he’d get up and take her to school. But that was on a normal day.

Today wasn’t a normal day—and neither was yesterday actually.

Because last night, for the second time in his life, he got to hold Beth. And he got a picture too! A freaking ADORABLE picture where she was tucked against his side and the crook of his arm--little blonde curls and a smile that made him worry about her future as a heartbreaker.

She was warm and soft and sweet and…

And there was no way in hell he’d let go of her this time. No. Way. In. Hell.

Just no.

He lost her a grand total of two times: when he signed the adoption papers and when Shelby moved to New York. He wasn’t gonna up that number to three.

She was here and, to an extent, she was his.

Everyone was always throwing the whole let-me-feel-bad-for-you-because-you-lost-your-baby thing on Quinn but they completely forgot about him. (That’s probably why she developed that bizarre need to look like a Cyndi Lauper hobo and why he managed to stay relatively normal.) True, they probably thought he was too badass to miss his daughter, but in all honesty, it actually _was_ badass to miss his daughter because every other guy wouldn’t give another thought to the fact that he knocked up some chick and gave his baby away.

But Puck had a history that didn’t need a psychologist to understand. He had a history, so he wasn’t about to let his future slip through his fingers.

And as he held her last night—as she gurgled and giggled at that ugly-ass pig-clown picture he made her—he realized that even though he was just her biological father, he could be an _actual_ father too. And that frame of mind brought him to an epiphany (yeah, he knows what an epiphany is and who Napoleon was; he’s a fucking genius now) of what he was gonna do next for Brittany’s little plan to get him and Rachel together.

Only now it wasn’t really Operation Puckleberry anymore. It was more…Operation Be _Noah_ for Beth (And If Berry Noticed, Then All the Better).

So that’s why he was parked at the elementary school at 6:30 AM like a weirdo pedophile. And in all honesty, what he was about to do was pretty sketchy enough: He was gonna pick up Stevie and Stacy, and it had to be at that unholy hour otherwise the administration would sic the cops on him for kidnapping or something.

Sam always dropped them off an hour early because he’d take a shower in the locker room before anyone got there, and up until last night, that had always sounded super-stupid to Puck because God only knows who could walk up to those two blonde munchkins and just run off with one tucked under each arm. Now Puck was pretty thankful that Sam’s bathing habits played so well into his plan.

Why was he abducting the children at such an unholy hour in the first place?

Because after doing his good deed for Kurt (who really wasn’t too upset about a third of his clothes being roasted since he managed to convince himself that he dreamed all of it up and also ‘cause Blaine’s transfer to WMHS—as if no one saw that coming—totally cushioned the blow to Hummel’s ego), Puck’s next project was someone he should’ve thought of helping long before Brit’s bullshit plan.

He and Finn weren’t gonna kill each other any time soon, but aside from the rare “what up, dude?” and the occasional nod and high-five about something cool, Puck found himself spending a lot more time with Evans. Chang was too busy working at the local dance studio and coming up with some other “basic” moves for that bullshit Booty Camp thing after school, and if that ninja-with-no-moves had any free time, he spent it making out with Tina. But still, Evans was cool once you got the guy to quit talking in Na’vi.

Best of all was that he and Puck shared a mutual appreciation—okay, _slight obsession_ —with Marvel Comics.

(That is some badass motherfuckin’ culture right there, bitches. Don’t hate.)

So, you know, they got pretty tight over the summer. Sam would bring over his and his dad’s old _X-Men_ and _Avengers_ comics while Puck supplied a good babysitter-in-training (Bekah) for Stevie and Stacy to hang with. They’d all chill at Puck’s until the Evanses left to go back to their motel after dinner. Stevie and Stacy were pretty adorable since they were still little and weren’t at that age where they started getting super-annoying (like Bekah), and Sam wasn’t just good for comics and useless ramblings about Avatar either.

They didn’t just talk about sports and how the third _Transformers_ movie wasn’t the same without Megan Fox. They talked about some pretty deep shit too. Like how Sam needed to get, like, a tutor or something so he could get through the year with his dyslexia and graduate with at least _one scholarship_ so his parents wouldn’t have to pay so much for college and how Puck had always carried around Shelby’s phone number in his wallet but never actually called her—which thankfully he didn’t need now.

 _Goddamn_ , no more caffeine in the morning _period._ Even his thought-sentences were fucking _long._

So while Puck wanted to chug drain cleaner when he was “helping” Hummel, he didn’t actually feel all that bothered by wanting to help Sam

Okay, maybe he was a little bothered that this might end up with him being arrested and completely friend-less because stealing an ATM was one thing but stealing two small children was another thing _entirely._ He was a little guilty that he’d sent the human equivalent of a golden retriever on weed to Sam, who was more than likely still taking his shower. Puck had to make sure that Sam knew Stevie and Stacy were in good hands just in case they got home late. And Puck was also a little afraid that the sole act of siccing Brittany on Sam might cause him to lose the only actual friend he had (Berry didn’t count) anyway, but fuck it all. If his plan works (which it _would_ because he’s a badass criminal mastermind), incarceration and potential hermit-ness wouldn’t matter.

He hopped out of his truck and waved over to the blonde twins who were jumping up and down and waving back at him with their huge-ass backpacks. They were still just assembled outside the school, waiting for the classrooms to open, so they were free to escape.

“Puckerman?”

Puck’s eyes widened and then he grimaced.

Shit.

He forgot.

He forgot about ten year-old Angel Lopez. He forgot that Angel Lopez went to the same school as Stevie and Stacy, and he forgot that Angel Lopez’s big sister happened to take him to school every morning.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Satan asked, sauntering up to his side as Stevie and Stacy started sprinting over to him. “You know you’re supposed to _drop_ them off in the morning, not _pick_ them up. Just because they’re broke doesn’t mean you’re allowed to leave them at the school all day—”

“Satan, don’t make me break out my book of exorcisms.”

“You’re watching too much _Supernatural_ , Puck. You’re no Dean Winchester. Get over yourself.”

“Then how ‘bout you leave me the fuck alone and go spread your evil to the rest of the world or something?” he hissed just as Stevie leaped up at his chest.

He grabbed the kid before the mini-Sam could fall, and another small weight smacked against Puck’s knee as Stacy wrapped her arms around his leg.

“Puck! Puck, what are you doing here?!” Stevie cried excitedly.

“Are you gonna rescue us from Mrs. Steele, Puck? Please save us from Mrs. Steele!” Stacy pleaded, squeezing his leg desperately.

“Yo, Bobbsey Twins, calm yourselves,” Puck chuckled, slinging Stevie over his shoulder and hauling Stacy up into his other arm, “or I’m not gonna take you out for your surprise.”

“YEAH!” the two cheered happily. “SURPRISE!”

“So we’re not gonna go to school today?” Stevie asked with this massive grin as he tried to lift himself off Puck’s shoulder to check if Puck was serious or not.

“Nah, you can skip this one time,” Puck said, hauling them towards his truck. He barely even noticed that Santana was still trailing after him.

“And where are you taking them, Puck?” she asked with an evil smirk.

“Out for a surprise, Satan,” Puck answered as he deposited the twins into the cab and then ran around to the driver’s side. “Twins, say bye-bye to Satan.”

“Bye, Satan!”

“Bye-bye, Satan! Be nice to Jesus!”

Santana glared at Puck and suddenly jumped into the cab next to the twins. Puck glared right back at her from where he was poised at the open door of the driver’s side.

“What are you doing?” Puck asked, trying to keep his tone light for the kids’ sakes.

Santana smiled evilly and turned to the twins. “Guys, don’t you think Puck should _share_ the surprise?”

“But you’re Satan,” Stevie rationalized. “You’re not allowed to get surprises. You’re supposed to burn.”

Santana’s eyes widened a little before she pouted. “Uh, maybe I’m mean because no one ever gave me surprises.”

Bullshit. Her dad bought her a new Mercedes two days ago.

But Puck knew he was in deep shit because Stacy—sweet, gullible, let’s-feed-the-wolf-‘cause-he-looks-hungry Stacy—turned to look at him with those damned Bambi eyes. “Let’s bring Satan with us, Puck. Maybe that’ll make her nicer to Jesus.”

“How about she be nicer to _Jews_ and _leave them alone_?” Puck asked pointedly, hopping into the cab and slamming the door.

“Leaving Jews alone isn’t nice, right kids?” Santana asked, throwing an arm around Stacy. “No one wants to be neglected.”

“Right!” Stacy chimed in as Puck started the engine.

And Satan continued to poison the twins’ minds. “And Sammy wouldn’t want Puck to deal with you two little monsters by himself, right?”

“No,” Stevie said thoughtfully. “We _are_ little monsters.”

“Then it’s settled,” she announced, smiling devilishly at Puck over the twins’ heads. “Auntie ‘Tana’s gonna tag along.”

Which basically translated to: _If you don’t let me come with you, I’ll tell Sam you’re kidnapping his brother and sister and selling them to a human trafficker for money to buy yourself a new truck, jackass. What now!_

Fuck.

**~oOo~**

Even if Finn had a quarter of a brain and -23 IQ points, he would’ve been able to see that putting Santana and Puck in one car for more than fifteen minutes would end up with someone being thrown out the window. Both of them were making a very conscious effort to keep from using any  cuss words for Stevie and Stacy’s sakes, but their combined patience had run out about ten minutes into the ride, and they’d been itching to strangle each other for the last half-hour. Puck estimated about five more minutes until one of them cracked, and Puck would have to pull over on the side of the highway and have a full-out brawl with Beelzebub herself.

Their “conversation” had started out fairly civil.

“Where are we going anyway, Puck?”

“I told y’all. It’s a surprise.”

“It’s a surprise for the _twins_. Not for me.”

“Well, then since it’s not a surprise for you, you don’t need to know _anything_.”

The more Santana pestered him about where they were going (since they were currently on the highway heading _out_ of Lima), the tighter Puck gripped the steering wheel and clenched his teeth to keep from bitching at her about the whole betraying-glee thing and the fact that she was just annoying in general. The longer they kept that up, the more the “conversation” tilted downward into a steep decline, but they still managed to maintain some sort of civility by substituting cuss words.

“You’re so fu—fudgin’ annoying, you know that?”

“Another _Supernatural_ reference, seriously? You’re such a fa—loser.”

He knew what she was gonna say.

“Oh, _I’m_ a _loser_? I’m not the one who used Karofsky as your fudgin’ _beard_!”

“You don’t know what the fu—fruit you’re talking about!”

But that got old _fast_. The incline turned into a 90° angle as they descended into their respective languages (well, Puck knew Yiddish not Hebrew) and the content of their “conversation” became less substantial. Also, insults transcend languages apparently. Thankfully, the twins thought it was absolutely hilarious to hear the two of them screaming like idiots.

“¡Te voy a sacar la cabeza!”

 “Gai in drerd arein!”

“¡Bésame el culo!

“Gai tren zich!”

Their sentences became progressively shorter until they were just screaming phrases and words at each other instead of full sentences.

“¡Tonto!”

“Behaimeh!”

“¡Cabron!”

“Fortz n’ zovver!”

It wasn’t until they reached the city limits that Santana _finally_ broke.

“Puck, what the fucking hell are we doing in _Columbus_?!”

“SATAN!” Stevie gasped.

“SATAN, GO WASH YOUR MOUTH WITH SOAP!” Stacy shrieked, pushing Santana into the door as if to kick her out of the car—the _moving_ car.

They nearly got in a car accident because Puck was laughing so hard when Stacy actually reached over Santana’s lap and pushed open the door. Santana screamed, gripped the overhead handle, and hauled the door closed as the cars around them honked and swerved out of the way.

Once Santana finally stopped screeching in Spanish about “gringa loca” and some other shit, they pulled into a McDonald’s for some late breakfast. Because the constant bickering between Puck and Santana was temporarily suspended as she tried to get her heart rate back to normal, Stevie and Stacy took up the mantle of harassing Puck about their “surprise.”

He’d seen them in action so he knew they’d be _good_ at it, but he wasn’t really sure about how they’d _react_ to it. So he told them to trust him and wait.

And because Stevie idolized both his big brother and Puck and aimed to become a perfect combination of the two, he sat back and waited. And because Stacy was halfway in love with Puck, she kissed his cheek, said she trusted him, and finished her hash browns. Santana, on the other hand, continued to sip her iced coffee and glare at him furiously.

“Don’t give me that look, Satan. You’re the one who wanted to tag along,” Puck reminded her smugly as Stevie and Stacy got up to use the bathroom.

Santana seized the opportunity to grab the collar of Puck’s shirt and haul him over to the middle of the table.

“Whoa, she-devil! Calm yourself! Damn!” Puck blurted out, yanking her hand away from him.

“Then tell me what the fuck you’re doing!” she hissed. “Seriously, Puckerman, what the hell? Why would you just randomly abduct those two and take them to fucking Columbus? What are you thinking?”

“Calm down, Satan. I’m not _actually_ trying to abduct them. Jesus,” Puck sighed, taking a gulf of his orange juice. “I’m trying to help Sam and his family.”

Santana raised an eyebrow. “By taking off with the youngest two? Brilliant. Two less mouths to feed.”

“No, _puta_ , I’m trying to get them some money,” he shot back, using one of the few Spanish words he knew.

“By _peddling_ the youngest two? Even fucking better.”

“Jesus, I’m not _selling_ Stevie and Stacy! Why are you so damn fixated on me selling them? Is this your subconscious way of telling me that you wanna be a hooker?”

“Don’t be a bitch, Puckerman. Everyone knows that’s basically what _you_ did for two summers anyway.”

“Fuck you, Satan. At least I hid it behind a legit business. You’re just gonna put your ass right out there.”

She slapped her palm against the table and groaned exasperatedly. “Can you just _stop_ trying to deviate from the subject here?! What are you _planning_ , Puckerman?! This is my actual serious face here right now.”

Puck sighed and leaned back against his chair before pulling a cut-out article out of his back pocket and tossing it at Santana. She plucked it out of the air and smoothed out the crumpled paper on the table.

“Open auditions? _Here_?” she asked, looking up at him with her eyebrows raised. “Don’t they normally hold this kind of shit in New York City or LA? What the fuck are they doing in _Columbus_?”

“Hell if I know,” Puck answered, “but I’m not complaining. Those two munchkins are _perfect_. Sam can sing, but those two can _act_.”

Santana frowned and pushed the article back toward him. “You _cannot_ be so sure that they’ll land that role. It’s _open auditions_ , Puck. There are gonna be _thousands_ of kids running around when we get there. And they’re gonna ask for the parents. In case you haven’t realized, I’m fucking _Hispanic_ , and you don’t look a _thing_ like Stevie or Stacy. You can’t pass us off as a family.”

“That’s the point,” Puck said, smirking.

She blinked and because Puck and Santana were actually a lot more alike than either of them wanted to admit, she immediately caught on to his plan.

Stevie and Stacy would never have to set foot in that audition room.

~oOo~

Despite arriving in Columbus at around 8, they didn’t actually _go_ to the auditions until about 3:45-ish. Puck had pulled some strings and used his high-profile connections from juvie (it involved saving a kid from getting pegged with dumbbells—those sons of bitches didn’t steal Puck’s waffles and rip out his nipple ring for no reason) so they could skip the four-block line to _register_ , so all four of them were chillin’ in a nice, air-conditioned waiting room. He’d filled out the forms without any problems, but he knew that as soon as Stevie and Stacy’s names were called, shit was gonna hit the fan, and his plan would come into action.

Then Sam called Santana at 4.

She was sitting on the other side of the room since Puck had long since fulfilled his Santana-quota for the next forty years. If Rachel made him want to light himself on fire sometimes, Santana made him want to pry his skull apart and pour Clorox onto his brain.

Which was why when Satan’s phone started ringing and she answered it, he couldn’t make out the distorted screaming coming from the other end of the line. She held the phone at arm’s length as the screaming kept going. She finally started banging it on the arm of her chair, which got the screaming to stop long enough for her to talk.

“Evans, don’t give me a reason to rip off your big, trouty lips,” she growled as she crossed the room and put the phone between her and Puck’s ears. “Scream at me one more time, and you’re gonna wake up one morning with the bottom half of your face peeled off.”

“Shut up, Satan! Football got cancelled, and when I went back to the motel, no one was there! So I went to Puck’s, and guess what? They weren’t there either! I’ve tried calling Puck, but his phone keeps going straight to voicemail! Santana, so help me God, if you don’t tell me where my best friend and siblings are—”

“ _Aww_!” she cooed at Sam. “Pucky-Puck’s your best friend?”

Puck glared at her and whacked her with a rolled-up magazine.

“SATAN!” Sam roared into the phone.

“Oh, chillax. You gots to go get yourself some weed, Lips. You need to _relax_.”

“I’LL RELAX WHEN I KNOW WHERE STEVIE, STACY, AND PUCK ARE!”

“And what makes you think I know?!” Santana snapped back. “Just stop freaking out. Puckerman must’ve just taken the demon twins out to the lake and one of them might’ve chucked his phone out into the middle of the lake in some tantrum or something.”

Stevie’s head popped up from where he’d laid down to take a nap. “Hey! We don’t throw tantrums!”

Puck ran his hand down his face. “Shit.”

“SANTANA! THAT WAS STEVIE! WHERE IN THE EVER-LOVING HELL ARE YOU AND WHY THE FUCK DID MY BEST FRIEND AND DEMONIC EX-GIRLFRIEND ABDUCT MY BROTHER AND SISTER?!”

“Stevie and Stacy Evans?”

“Sam, we’re gonna have to call you back. We’re in Columbus—”

“COLUMBUS?! WHAT—”

“—so just wait at Puck’s until we get there. M’kay? Gots to go. Bye.”

**~oOo~**

True to his word, Stevie and Stacy never set foot in that audition room. Technically, the _entire waiting room_ became their audition room.

Puck was a motherfuckin’ genius, man. Like seriously.

Sadly, Sam didn’t really think so. Puck had gotten Stacy to legit _kick_ Santana out of his truck when they pulled up to the elementary school, so she didn’t get to face the rarely-seen, full-fledged Sam Evans _rage_.

Like, it took a solid half-hour and Stevie and Stacy on each knee for Sam to sit down long enough to hear Puck’s explanation, and he probably _still_ didn’t register much of what Puck said anyway.

“DUDE!” Puck snapped. “Are you even listening to me?!”

Sam just kept glaring at him.

“EVANS, the twins got the part! They’re gonna play a couple of foster kids of that one lawyer chick on that one show! They’re gonna start filming the new season in three months, so they’ll have to go with…” Puck trailed off uselessly when he noticed that Sam probably _still_ wasn’t listening.

 _Fuck it_ , Puck thought. Only one thing was gonna snap him out of his stupor of rage, and Puck was too tired to keep dealing with this.

“Stevie, Stacy, repeat what I say, okay? Shi—”

A pillow flew at Puck’s face so fast he was actually a little _proud_.

“Don’t repeat that!” Sam ordered the twins, who only giggled. “Go up to Bekah’s room and see if she’ll play with you or something.”

“Don’t get mad at Puck, Sammy,” Stacy said, crawling up Sam’s side and kissing him on the cheek.

“Yeah, we’re gonna be TV stars ‘cause of Puck,” Stevie added, grabbing Stacy’s hand and hauling her down the couch.

Once the two were up the stairs, Sam stood up from the couch and leveled a very dark, very _evil_ looking glare that Puck was, once again, proud of. The fact that he was standing up to the resident legendary BAMF was pretty impressive, but the fact that he was standing up to _Puck_ kind of detracted from that.

“What…were…you…thinking?” Sam asked calmly.

“I think it’s pretty obvious, dude. You’re dyslexic, not stupid.”

Sam scowled. “Why the fuck didn’t you just _tell_ me what you were doing?!”

Puck shrugged. “It was supposed to be a surprise.” Then he grimaced. “Dude, don’t make me sound gay. Just…tell your parents that I already called your mom’s cousin—the one in LA who swore off guys after her tenth husband turned gay and ran off with the landscaper, remember?—and she offered to let y’all stay with her until you get your bearings and shit.”

Sam frowned. “You trying to get rid of us or something?”

Puck rolled his eyes. “Christ, here we go. Dude, you’re staying with me until we graduate. Stevie, Stacy, and your parents—as soon as you tell them—are gonna move out to LA for the show. I’m sick of y’all going back to that motel, man. I’m pretty sure that’s the one Satan and Frankenteen did the dirty at.”

Sam flinched a little and ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know, dude. I don’t like kids growing up in Hollywood. I don’t want Stevie and Stacy to end up like Lindsay Lohan or something. Remember what happened to Drew Barrymore?”

“That’s why I said Stevie and Stacy were perfect. Those kids…are fucking _weird_ , dude. They’re like…forty year-olds in six year-old bodies. For as long as your parents are around and doing whatever it is they’re doing, those two will be fine. No drugs or anorexia or something.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“Okay, I don’t do this reassuring shit, Sam. They’re game, and I even got them to fax the contract to Satan’s mom—the lawyer, remember? So she’ll fix that shit up and send it over to your parents for them to check out, and if shit ain’t kosher, you guys can back out of the deal. But seriously, dude, you should’ve seen them in action. They were about to drag me and San outside and shit and they started crying on command and it was _perfect_. They got the roles on the spot.”

A smile suddenly sprouted on Sam’s face. “Seriously?”

Puck smirked. “Totally. You got the voice, but those two got the acting chops.”

“What show was it?”

“The one that won the that Emmy last year for best show.”

“ _Seriously_?” Sam frowned. “What the heck are they doing in _Columbus_?”

“Hell if I know,” Puck said again. “But thank God, otherwise those two wouldn’t have a job now.”

“I don’t get what you’re doing, dude,” Sam flopped back onto the couch. “You did that modeling thing for Kurt, but then Bekah told me you showed up back at home wearing a suit and that Jabbawockeez mask, so _you’re_ the one who tried to burn down Kurt’s house. Now you kidnap Stevie and Stacy and then tell me that you got them a job on an Emmy award-winning show? Are you…being _nice_?”

“What?! Hell no. I just want those monsters outta my house!”

Sam grinned and chucked another pillow at Puck. “Thanks, dude. This is gonna really help my fami—”

“Shut it!” Puck ordered, grimacing as he rubbed the back of his neck and strode into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Then he poked his head back out into the living room. “Hey, you wanna come see Beth? Brace yourself for an onslaught of badass cuteness.”


	4. Satan

“Noah!”

“No, I’m not doing another duet with you. Brittany’s gonna harass me for another download of ‘Need You Now’ or Finn’s gonna give me another lecture about whatever the fuck it is that I _owe him_ , so, no, Berry. Even it’s got something to do with that stupid confidence assignment Schue gave us, you and I aren’t gonna be doing any duets or shit—even though we’d kick ass. I got enough drama in my life with Quinn insisting on—”

“And _I’m_ the one who won’t shut up, huh, Puckerman?”

The halls were empty since they both had a free period, but he still had that weird paranoia that Finn or some other blabber mouth was peeking around the corner to see what Puck’s next screw-up was gonna be. And it was pretty obvious to him that this would be the only time Berry would come up to him during the school day—when Finn wasn’t around.

He slammed his locker shut to turn and narrow his eyes at the gnome smirking up at him. He gave her a brief once-over, taking in the dress and the flats, and he remembered exactly who Brittany borrowed that leather miniskirt she wore for her _Run the World_ number from.

And then the mood shifted. Insert evil smile and chuckle here.

“So,” he said, smirking and striding forward to back her against the opposite wall of lockers, “what’cha want with me, my hot little Jewish-American princess?”

She visibly swallowed and kept backing up until she smacked into the lockers. “N-Noah?”

He smirked a little wider and bent his head closer to her. He could smell the flower-y scent of her perfume. “Yeah, baby?”

She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Then she swallowed again and straightened out her dress before setting her palm against his chest and pushing. “Oh! Y-You’ve been really exercising your pectorals, haven’t you?”

Puck grinned and jerked an eyebrow up and down like a nod. “Glad you noticed.”

She cleared her throat again and pushed a little harder, but he still didn’t budge. He liked the small warmth of her hand too much to back off. “Um, you need to move out of my personal space now, please.”

“Does it bother you that I’m this close, Berry?” he asked, leaning closer. “Didn’t bother you much at prom.”

“That—Noah, that was before Finn and I—”

And there were the three words he did _not_ like hearing. Like _ever_. Unless it was immediately followed by “broke” and “up.” He’d love to hear _that_.

“—got back together. I don’t know where this relationship will go, but I’m not going to do anything else that could potentially jeopardize our current happine—”

Puck sighed at how fucking appropriate that song they dance to at prom was—so close and so far.

FUCK, he did _not_ just think that.

With a sigh, he planted a hand on the lockers behind her and pushed himself away. “Jesus, all right, Berry. I got it. I got it. What do you want then?”

She frowned at the sudden distance between them and cleared her throat _again_. “Well, I heard about Stevie and Stacy’s successful auditions, and I knew that you must’ve been the one to sneak into Finn and Kurt’s house to burn Kurt’s clothes because the ones that went missing just happened to be the outfits you particularly complained about and the ones we all told Kurt were less than satisfactory. I can’t say that I know _exactly_ what you’re planning, but I’d just like to say that I’m proud of you, Noah. Even if you feel obligated to do this, I’m fairly sure that your reasons happen to lie somewhere in the realm of an adorable little baby girl with curly blonde hair.”

Puck swallowed. “You…you saw her?”

Berry nodded and gave him a small smile. “She’s beautiful.”

Puck grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. “She is, right? She looks more like Quinn, but—”

“But that smile is all yours,” she finished for him, her smile widening a little before fading. “Yeah, I know. I saw it. She’s gorgeous, Noah. I’m glad she’s here.”

He frowned and reached out to nudge her chin with his finger. “How are you and Shelby?”

She flinched. “It’s awkward, to say the least. She doesn’t seem to know how to treat me—like a baby or a grown woman—so she simultaneously reaches out and pulls back, and it’s confusing. I’m still smarting over her blatant rejection— _two_ blatant rejections, actually—but I’m genuinely trying to make an effort for both our sakes.”

“What do the Fathers Berry say about all this?”

She chuckled at his nickname for her fathers and then shrugged. “They assured me that as long as I didn’t _abandon_ them, they were perfectly content with letting me spend some time with Shelby. With Daddy being a therapist, he understands the difficulties of being the child of a homosexual couple and how the child would feel deprived of either a father or mother figure. They _understand_ , but I’m sure they aren’t _happy_ about it.”

“Hiram running around the house wringing his hands and freaking out and shit?” Puck asked knowingly, remembering the way the guy paced back and forth and kept rubbing his already-regressing hairline.

“Well, around the _living room_ , but, yes, that was his immediate reaction when I told him Shelby was back. Dad, of course, was as stoic as a rock on the armchair.”

That was Leroy. The dude was already big and black, and add in that whole I-will-glare-a-hole-through-your-head expression the man practically copyrighted, Puck would easily admit to being scared half to shit by Berry’s dad.

“We...well, we actually invited Shelby and Beth to dinner on Friday night. You could join us if you’d like—give yourself more time to spend with Beth without _too much_ awkwardness.”

Puck blinked. _Too much awkwardness?_ “Because having dinner with your biological daughter whose adoptive mother also happens to be the estranged biological mother of your ex-girlfriend, whose fathers aren’t exactly jumping with joy about the whole situation isn’t awkward _at all_ , Berry.”

Berry grimaced a little and seemed to think better of it. “Well, you could bring your mother and sister. Aviva and Bekah are always welcome. We’ll be having a Jewish dinner, so—”

Puck couldn’t stop it. He just busted out laughing. Like...seriously. He was leaning against the lockers, doubled over and trying to gasp for air.

“Because throwing my psychotic mom and my over-opinionated sister into the mix will make it _all_ better?!” he gasped between laughs. “Jesus Christ!”

“Saying no would’ve sufficed, Puckerman!” she huffed, totally offended.

“Chillax, Berry,” Puck said, straightening up and taking a couple deep breaths. “I’m game.”

She suddenly brightened, and even though he thought it was still gonna be a hella awkward night, he was glad he agreed. Those damn big brown eyes and that non-Broadway smile...

“Really? That’s fantastic! Dad and I will be making so much food, so having you come over will ensure that nothing goes to waste.”

Puck raised an eyebrow. “Okay, so now you’re saying you invited me so you could use me as a human garbage disposal?”

Her mouth dropped and she quickly tried to take it back. “No, no, I just wanted to make the idea more appealing with the prospect of an obscene amount of food which I know would—”

“Chill, Berry. I was kidding,” he said, smirking. Then he wiped it off and added, “But Ma and Bekah are _not_ coming.”

She frowned. “Have they seen Beth? Wouldn’t my house be a good place for your mother to meet the adoptive mother of her grandchild?”

“Berry, as logical as you think that shit is, I can only handle one crazy parent at a time, and you’re already asking too much of me with Hiram and Shelby and _you_.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “All right. Maybe another time then?”

He grunted noncommittally and finally forced himself to ask the dealbreaker question.

“Is Finn coming?”

She blinked and seemed to seriously think about it before shaking her head. “No, he’s switching shifts with Darryl, so he’ll be working that night.”

Puck’s eyes narrowed. “What’s with the hesitation?”

She bit her lip, and both his hand and eye twitched.

“Don’t bite your lip. You’ll get cancer,” he blurted out.

Brittany _might_ have told him that, so it probably wasn’t legit information, but he needed to stop Berry from doing that shit.

Primarily because _he_ wanted to be the one to nibble on her lip.

Berry jumped and put her hand up against her mouth. “You’re right!”

Puck jerked his head back in surprise. “What?”

“I completely forgot about that,” she said worriedly. Then she looked up at his disbelieving expression and explained, “Your mouth heals very quickly, so every time you injure your lips, your cells run the risk of mutating and potentially causing you future health risks—cancer included.”

“No shit!” Puck said, smiling. For once Brittany was actually right. “Brittany told me that, but I didn’t believe her.”

“Well, I was the one to tell her that because she asked me if biting your lip by accident and licking the blood would make her a vampire.”

Puck sighed and rolled his eyes. _Of course._

“So...Friday?” he asked, slowly backing away because it was almost time for the classes to let out.

She nodded with a bright, Broadway smile that told him she was gonna start freaking out about Finn finding out she invited Puck to dinner without him. “Be there at seven o’clock sharp!”

He nodded once, turned, and walked away.

So much for not doing anything to jeopardize her current happiness.

**~oOo~**

Booty Camp wasn’t so bad.

Okay, that was him trying to be positive.

Booty Camp sucked ass.

Not just ‘cause Mercedes was _legit_ having the biggest diva fit—one that made Berry’s diva fits look like meek, humble complaints. Not just cause Puck heard the phrase “kick-ball-step” way too many fucking times to be comfortable either—regardless of whether or not Mike said Puck was one of the best in the camp now ( _DAMN STRAIGHT_ , BITCHES!) he still felt like an awkward rhino doing ballet.

It sucked ass because he was spinning and swinging his arms next to a psychotic bitch who was hell-bent on becoming #2 Shit Disturber of Lima right after Sylvester.

Okay, he entertained the idea of being Beth’s actual father and raising her with Quinn for a grand total of three minutes before he remembered that the woman he’d be raising his daughter with basically thought he was gonna live, die, and rot a Lima Loser.

1) Raising Beth in that kind of environment—shit, raising _any_ kid in that kind of environment—was bad beyond all known reason.

2) It was Quinn’s choice to give Beth up in the first place, and who was she to renege on that a year and a half later? Biological mother or not, that shit wasn’t kosher. And even if he wasn’t Shelby’s #1 fan because of the way she, like, _ditched_ Berry a year ago, Beth was safe with Shelby. Quinn was just fucking unstable.

3) He was a fucking senior in high school. He may not have been entirely sure about who Napoleon really was up until about two days ago, but he was smart enough to know that he probably wasn’t the most capable person to raise a daughter. Not yet.

This was a good setup they had now—Shelby here in Lima and Puck being able to be a part of Beth’s life even if he wasn’t actually the one taking care of her. He had to focus on school to get into the college he was looking into, and even though it sounded selfish, he needed to focus on himself, not a baby. And he was doing it _for_ Beth. Who wants a Lima Loser for a father—biological or adoptive?

FUCK YOU, he’s growing up, all right?! He’s a BAMF, but you don’t get to be an adult BAMF without realizing when it’s time to quit shittin’ around.

Fabray, of course, wants it all. She wants to be an idiot, and she wants Beth. And that pretty much _solidified her standing_ as an idiot. (Hell, yeah, he was kicking ass in English! Those notes Berry gives him were like fucking magic.) And because she was apparently an idiot, Puck forced himself to start hanging around her more often. He needed to know what the hell she was planning so he could figure out a way to help Shelby and Beth.

So Puck was too busy being consumed in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice someone grab him by the back of his shirt and shove him into the nearest janitor’s closet.

“What the fuck?! _BRITTANY?_ Again?! Haven’t we seen enough of each other?!” he demanded, straightening out his shirt and glaring at the blonde.

“I know which gleek you need to help next.”

Puck frowned. “Too bad. I pick who I wanna help, when I wanna help them, and how I do it.”

“Those weren’t the terms of our agreement.”

What the fuck? Since when did this chick know what terms of agreement even were?

“We didn’t even make any terms of agreement, Pierce. Doesn’t count.”

“Exactly. Which is why you’re gonna do this.”

“What? Why would—? How did you even connect that?!”

“Because we didn’t discuss the terms of agreement, there aren’t any terms so I can tell you what to do since it was my idea in the first place and you owe me!”

“Woman, we talked about this! I don’t owe you! You actually have to do me the favor before cashing in!” Since she apparently didn’t think that saving him from juvie was a favor, he wasn’t about to remind her.

“But we already know that I’m gonna do the favor so you can pay me back and make us even before I do you a favor! It’s like a primitive strike!”

He didn’t bother to correct “primitive” with “preemptive” or the concept of favors and paybacks either. “All right, _fine_ , Pierce. Who is it this time?”

“San, Puck. I need you to help San.”

Puck sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Don’t tell me y’all forgot that he filled his Santana-quota already.

“What could she _possibly_ need help with? I was planning on saving the demon for last because she’ll probably throw me in a woodchopper or something.”

“Santana doesn’t have any woodchucks,” Brittany laughed. “But she does need help.”

“With what, Brit? Finding her dignity?”

“No, I need you to get her to admit that she’s a lesbian so she won’t be all jumpy when someone comes up to us when we’re talking.”

Puck blinked once. Twice. Six times before he finally opened his mouth to say,

“Are you trying to fucking get me killed?”

Brittany pouted.

“No, Brits, I’m serious. If I _drag_ Santana out of the closet, she’s gonna put me through that weird Chinese torture method with the dripping water, dismember me bit by bit with a plastic knife, sear my skin with a flat iron, peel off aforementioned crispy skin, douse me in alcohol, gouge out my eyes with a melon baller, force feed me my own eyes, attach electric cables to my ears to fry me up, and finally push me down that woodchopper.”

Brittany frowned up at him with her head tilted to the side, giving him this “duh” kind of expression. “Then don’t _drag_ her out.”

She was fucking abducted by aliens. That was the only explanation why Brittany functioned on such an entirely different wavelength than anyone else. She was abducted when she was little, and she had a brain transplant with a Martian.

Because only a fucking clueless alien would 1) want _Santana_ , 2) think that _killing_ him would _help_ him, and 3) come up with a brilliant plan with only five fucking words.

Because it was true. She was beyond batshit, but she just gave him a genius plan. A genius plan that had a 62% chance of getting him kicked in the ass by a very pissed-off devil spawn, but if everything went accordingly, he could actually manage to pull it off without having one of those super-white cheerleading shoes shoved so far up his ass that the shoelaces would come out his nose if he sneezed.

Brittany seemed to know he had his little epiphany because she smiled, kissed his cheek, and smacked his ass as she walked out of the supply room.

“Hey, Puck?” she asked, poking her head back in.

He grunted in response.

“Can you make Rachel not be so annoying? It’s easy to hate Mercedes because I never talk to her and my brain can tune her out better, but if Operation Puckleberry is supposed to work, I can’t ignore Rachel all the time. I hate her, but I don’t want to. So make her not be annoying so I won’t have to hate her.”

Puck sighed and prayed to Jew-God that He’d give him some extra holy-rollin’ patience to survive the rest of the plan without wanting to throw himself off a cliff.

“And how the fuck do you propose I do that, Pierce?”

She shrugged. “Hypnotize her.”

And just like that, Puck completed his assignment for glee. Brittany was a Martian genius.

**~oOo~**

Puck turned down a hallway of lockers that he’d normally avoid on a typical day. He avoided that area of the school for one very good, very _legit_ reason: Nathalie Nazario’s locker was there.

Okay, Santana was the _devil_ , which meant that she was once an angel—even if that hardly counted for anything. There was at least one _small, eensy little sliver_ of light because she had her own motives, and if you helped those moments, she’d be civil to you.

Nazario was just pure evil packed into a sophomore girl’s body. She was never good, and there was never any hope for her at all. She had no serious motives aside from just being evil. And unfortunately, since she was the human manifestation of evil, she thought she’d found the perfect soul mate in the resident BAMF.

Which did not sit well with said BAMF at all.

Bitch was _crazy_.

Like multiply Berry, Satan, Suzy Pepper, Terry Schuester, and Sugar Motta a hundred times and shove them all into one person, and that would be Nazario. She was just bat-fucking-shit _psycho_ , and it was as fucking scary as a zombie apocalypse.

But apart from Berry, she’d be the only one to face up to Santana and do what needed to be done.

He would’ve gone to Jew-Fro, but the idiot couldn’t get within five feet of Puck without passing out in fear after a little incident involving a certain diva’s panties and an incompetent, clueless Sasquatch of a boyfriend. Plus the damn chia pet wouldn’t be able to face Santana without pissing his pants, so he was just fucking useless.

So Puck was about to do something he swore to never do… _for Satan_ , of all people. For _Berry_ , sure. For _Beth_ , duh. But for _Santana_? Brittany’s insanity was fucking rubbing off.

“Well, well, _well_.”

Here we fucking go.

“I haven’t seen you around these parts, Noah.”

Did he mention that the girl had the voice of a thousand shrieking demons?

“It’s _Puck_ ,” Puck said as he plastered on his signature smirk and leaned against the locker next to Nazario’s while she flipped her hair over her shoulder and puckered her lips at him in a smile. “Been pretty busy lately with glee and being a senior and all that, you know.”

“I can’t believe you’re a senior already, baby,” she drawled, rubbing his arm. (Mental note: douse arm in Lysol, Clorox, and rubbing alcohol.) “It’s been over a year since we first met each other, and it’ll be two more years until we can finally get out of here and be together. You’re still gonna wait for me, right?”  
   
Oh, yeah. Another little tidbit: she was fucking delusional.  
   
He almost gagged and threw up all over her, but he manage to stay in-character. “I don’t know, Nat. I’ve got a pretty bad track record with chicks, and I don’t think I can handle another relationship so soon.”  
   
She pouted and stomped her foot once. “What? Are you stupid, baby? You dated that Ewok, the STD-laced Cheeri-hoe, the pink-haired school whore, and the human mass equivalent of Canada! How could you _not_ date me?”

In that moment, he wanted to sic Berry, Santana, Quinn, and Lauren on this girl more than he wanted anything else in his entire life.

“Those girls were just _stupid_ , baby, and you dated them during your stupid phase. That diva is stupid, your baby-mama is psycho, that fatass is just that—a fatass—and the spick is probably a lesbian or something.”

Puck shrugged. “Whatever. _You_ go hit on her to see if she’ll switch to the other team for you.”

Nazario blinked, and Puck could _legit_ see the gears in the psycho’s head turning. Then she blinked again and smiled up at him sweetly.

“Don’t be stupid, baby. I don’t care about that bitch. You and I are endgame.”

If she was a guy, her head would be shoved so far up her ass right now... And if she kept talking and calling him stupid like it was supposed to be _endearing_ , her head _would_ be shoved up her ass, girl or not, so he decided it was time to end this little meeting. He’d planted the idea. This stage of the plan was complete.

“I gotta go to English,” he said, pushing off from the lockers and moving away from her.

“Okay, I’ll see you around, mushy!”

Did she just seriously call him that?

“And I’ll make sure to change your mind by then!”

Not if he can help it.

Oh, and Nathalie Nazario? The world’s biggest gossip.

Because it was _Lima_ , Puck didn’t need the typical three days to implement his plan. All he needed to do was tell the chick by third period, and it would spread to the whole _town_ by the end of school. So it was a pretty safe bet to assume that at least the entire student body knew—or at least _heard_ the rumor—that Santana was playing for the other field by lunch.

And they did.

As soon as she walked into the cafeteria, the dull roar that usually come out of the room went down to a low murmur. But she was _Satan_ , of course, so it didn’t look like it bothered her.

 _Much_.

“The _fuck_ you bitches starin’ at, huh?” she barked. She grabbed her chest and wiggled the girls a little. “Never seen a glorious set of tatas, have you? Too bad! These are as close as you’re gonna get to ‘em!”

Then she turned on her heel and marched toward the table Brittany was at.

When both Chang and Sam noticed the way Puck was smirking at Santana, they both nudged him in the ribs.

“What did you do this time, dude?” Mike hissed worriedly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Puck said, shoving a french fry into his mouth.

“This isn’t _me_ you’re messing around with anymore, Puck,” Sam said warningly.

Puck scoffed. “Back the fuck up, Evans. I told you I wouldn’t go gay for you.”

Sam grimaced and then scowled. “You know what I mean. You’re screwing around with _Satan_. She’s _scary_ , man. You said it yourself.”

“I said something else already too, Evans: _Don’t worry about it_ ,” Puck said, decisively ending the conversation. “I got this shit under control.”

“Just out of curiosity, Puck,” Blaine spoke up from where he’d been talking with Kurt and Tina. He propped his chin up on his hand. “Who _would_ you go gay for?”

“What kind of bullshit question is that?” Puck demanded, scowling darkly.

“It’s a legitimate question,” Blaine pointed out. That sneaky, devious bastard.

Everyone thought Anderson was a fucking angel in a bow tie, but Puck knew the truth. Curly-haired bastard was just as evil as Puck and Santana.

“And if you say Blaine, I will give Jacob Ben-Israel your pictures from the photo shoot,” Kurt said in the most threatening voice Puck had ever heard him use.

Berry, who was sitting on the other side of Blaine, pursed her lips to keep from laughing even though her shoulders were shaking, but Puck couldn’t exactly throw his spork at her (like he did to Finn when the idiot snorted into his burger). Sam and Chang, at least, had the decency to keep up a stone-faced expression, so Puck didn’t have to whack them in the faces with his lunch tray.

“So who would it be, Puck?” Artie asked, smirking.

“Yes, Noah. I’m sure we’re all eagerly awaiting your response,” _she_ said, shooting him an evil little smirk that went straight to his dick.

 _He’d_ been the one to teach her that smirk.

“Who would I go gay for?” Puck echoed with a sigh as he leaned back in his chair and twirled his straw between his fingers.

“And you can’t say Chuck Norris!” Mike interjected. “ _Every_ guy on the face of the earth would go gay for Chuck Norris. The man is a god.”

Even Tina nodded in agreement.

“Let’s make the question more interesting,” Blaine said, snapping his fingers.

 _Shit!_ He’d waited too long to answer.

“Anderson, shut—”

“Who would you go gay for in _glee_?”

“I fucking hate y’all,” Puck growled.

It pretty much continued like that for the next two days—no, not the gleeks harassing him about who he’d invert his dick into a vagina for, you moron. Every time Satan stomped into a room or through the halls by herself, everyone started muttering and whispering about her. You’d think these monkeys would get tired of bitching about any little thing...

To her credit, Satan ignored the comments until Wednesday when evil herself finally stepped up to the plate in the middle of the hallway.

Unfortunately, Puck wasn't actually there to see the shit go down firsthand, but from what Sam told him, it was pretty uneventful. Nazario went up to Satan, asked her if she was a lesbian, and Santana laughed and told her, “Bitch, if I was, I would totally turn permanently straight the moment you offered. Gross.”

So Puck was forced to take shit to the next level right before glee.

In actuality, this was probably gonna be his simplest plan. He hardly had to work. He didn’t have to risk being tossed in jail for arson or kidnapping, so he counted that as easy.

And just as Santana walked Brittany to glee that day, he rushed out of his seat next to The Child Thief, snatched up a giggling Brittany’s hand with what Berry called “one of his more roguish smiles,” spun her around once, and then dragged her away from the classroom, out into the hallway, and into the janitor’s closet.

He and Brit were legit _one second_ away from bursting out laughing before they finally heard the shriek.

“WHAT THE _FUCK_?!”

The door to the closet practically broke off its hinges, and a _claw_ carved through the air to sink into Puck’s shoulder and _throw_ him out into the hallway. He was so damn shocked that he actually hit the floor.

The gleeks had all rushed toward the entrance to the choir room to watch the scene, but it was Berry who blurted out, “Noah! Oh, my God! Your shirt!”

Puck glanced at the shoulder Santana had ripped through as Berry bent down next to him and pressed her cardigan (shut up, Kurt kept correcting him at the photo shoot when Puck kept calling the damn thing a “sweater”) against his shoulder to try and stop the bleeding. “Damn, Satan! You drew blood!”

“That’s what you _get_ , Fuckerman!” Satan cried furiously. If it was possible for someone’s entire eyeballs to turn red with rage, it would’ve happen to Santana right then. “ _My territory!_ ”

“Says _who_?” Puck said, glancing at a grinning Brittany out the corner of his eye.

“Says _me_ , numbnuts!”

She didn’t have to explicitly say, “Brittany is my girlfriend, fucktard. Hop off!” Everyone in the hall—which was basically a third of the student population—knew what she meant by that.

It was out, and it was obvious as a gunshot to the forehead. Santana was gay.

She looked up at everyone around her and threw her arms into the air. “Yeah, bitches! I get turned on by lady kisses! Big deal!”

“I knew it!” came a demonic voice from somewhere in the crowd.

Puck flinched.

Even if Nazario was pure evil, she was just such a shit disturber.

“You’re a dyke _and_ a walking Petrie dish of crabs and herpes,” Nazario said, pushing through the crowd and tossing her frizzy mouse-brown hair over her shoulder. “God, _what_ is the world coming to these days?”

Oh, dude. That was, like, the _worst_ thing to say right where she was standing. The _WORST_.

_“Excuse me?!”_

Nazario turned and scoffed at Berry, who’d stood up with her hands balled into fists at her side.

“You’re _excused_ , Ewok.”

“Well, thank you for so graciously excusing me, _bitch_ , but you’re the one who’s _not_ being excused right now.”

Finn stepped forward and reached out to restrain Berry, but she stepped out of his reach and got right up in Nazario’s face which both scared and turned Puck on.

Nazario was just a bit taller than Santana, and even though she had a face that could scare the _actual_ Satan back into the deep, dark corners of Hell, she was pretty cut. She fucking worked at the local gym—she _had_ to be cut. So the fact that his gnome was standing up to Nazario made him a little anxious.

“One: the world has come to a more enlightened time when people aren’t so prejudiced as to shun others for simply _loving someone_. Two: you have no right to call Santana such a vile and malicious name—”

“It’s called freedom of speech, sweetheart,” Nazario pointed out bitchily.

“More like freedom to make yourself sound like a racist, close-minded Neanderthal with no hope of ever succeeding in life because of a severe brain-cell deficit!”

“Are you calling me stupid?!”

“Thank you for proving my point! It’s obvious that you seem to be suffering from some delusion that you’re better than everyone else, but let me give you a reality check. That girl right there—Santana Lopez? She may have some sort of infection, but unless you’re her doctor—which you are most definitely not because giving you a medical license would be sentencing the world to an early apocalypse—you don’t know that, so you may as well stop making yourself look like an even bigger idiot by thinking that not only _are_ you better but that you also _know_ better. The fact of the matter is that no matter her sexual orientation or her health, the cells in the very tip of the corner of the toenail of her little pinky toe are _more talented_ than you could ever dream to be, _smarter_ than you could ever be even if you had a brain transplant with someone who actually had a functioning brain, and infinitely _better_ than you in _all_ aspects of life! So you can take that knowledge and shove it up your nose so that maybe _something_ can occupy the vacuum in your skull!”

Puck had never been so turned on in his life. He had to discreetly move the bloody cardigan from his shoulder to his crotch. Every mouth in the hall was hanging open because— _holy fucking shit_ —Rachel Berry just ripped apart Nathalie Nazario in defense of Santana Lopez.

This shit was going down in school history.

He could see Jew-Fro gleefully recording the whole thing on his camcorder, and Puck made a mental note to find that later tonight and download it onto a DVD to save _forever_.

“Anyone else have a problem?!” Berry demanded furiously as Nazario slipped back into the crowd with her forked tail between her legs. “Yeah! Didn’t think so! Go on! _Disperse_!”

It was then that Sam and Mike finally broke out of their slack-jawed trance to help Puck up to his feet. The three of them backed off, though, when Santana stepped toward Berry.

Berry sighed, knowing what was about to come. “Santana, I know it wasn’t my place to interfere in your battles because I know that you can hold your own, but you need to understand that even though we are no longer teammates and we were never actually ever friends, I will defend you against—”

And whoever stuck around to see the aftermath of the most epic chew-out the halls of WMHS had ever seen since its opening was privy to the second most-shocking thing they’d seen that day.

Satan shut Berry up by yanking the gnome into a hug.

Because Puck, Sam, and Chang were closer to the pair than the others, they heard Santana distinctly whisper into Berry’s ear: “You’re so goddamn _annoying_ sometimes, but _Jesus Christ_ , Rach, you’re fucking awesome.”

“I think hell just froze over,” Mike whispered.

“Pigs sprouted wings,” Sam added.

“Jacob Ben-Israel got a supermodel girlfriend,” Finn muttered.

“No, dude, that’s going too far,” Puck corrected him. Then he turned to the slack-jawed glee director. “Hey, Mr. Schue, can I use Santana for my confidence assignment even if she ain’t—”

“ _Isn’t_ , Noah.”

“— _ain’t_ in glee no more?” Puck finished with a smirk.

Schue blinked a couple of times before looking at Puck. “Y-Yeah, sure, of course. I don’t see a problem with it. Just go to the nurse first. You shoulder’s still bleeding.”

“I’ll go with him, Mr. Schue,” Berry offered, making Puck’s and Finn’s eyebrows shoot up.

“No, no, I’ll go,” Santana said, shooting Puck a sideways glance. “I gotta talk to him about something too.”

Schue nodded and started herding the other gleeks back into the choir room. “Sure. Just come back when you’re patched up, and we’ll be waiting for you.”

Santana wrapped her hand around Puck’s uninjured arm and started towing him toward the clinic.

This was gonna be fun.

She didn’t say anything the entire time they walked, and frankly, Puck was still in too much shock about everything that he didn’t really complain that she was still dragging him after her. It wasn’t until the nurse made him strip and poured hydrogen peroxide down his shoulder that Satan finally spoke.

“Puckerman, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what the hell you’re doing with all this shit, I’m gonna kick your ass straight into the fifteenth century,” she said calmly, her arms crossed over her chest.

Puck shrugged, and the nurse glared at him since she was applying the gauze and bandages. “I ain’t doing _shit_ , Satan. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit. Strike one.”

“Look, I don’t know what planet you’re on, but I’m not the one who gets off doing good deeds for you morons.”

“Horseshit. Strike two.”

“Well, _fine_ , Jesus. If you already know the damn truth, why bother making me tell you?”

“Strike three. Nurse, you better get ready to dial nine-one-one because my foot is about to—”

“ _Fine!_ For God’s sake, you have issues, you know that?!” Puck snapped. “I’m doing this for Brittany.”

“WHAT?!”

“Chill the fuck out,” he scoffed. “I’m not doing this to _impress_ Brittany. I’m doing this because Brittany _told me to_. She did me a solid, so I’m paying her back by being nice to the gleeks and doing them all favors and shit.”

“So Kurt?”

“Burned his clothes to make sure he wasn’t gonna be the laughingstock of that fashion school of his.”

“Sam?”

“Kidnapped Stevie and Stacy to get them an audition and a job so their family wouldn’t live in that godforsaken motel anymore.”

“Me?”

“Well, Brit told me that she wanted you to admit you were a lesbian, so I let Nazario develop the idea and spread it around in school until you finally got sick of it and told everyone the truth, but since it was taking you damn near forever to ‘fess up, I had to speed things up a little.”

She sighed heavily. “Yeah, Brit-Brit’s been trying to get me to come out so we wouldn’t have to keep sneaking around at school, but…I didn’t wanna deal with the drama and shit.”

“Lucky for you, I took that out of your hands.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as the nurse straightened up and starting collecting the first aid shit.

“You kids are crazy,” she muttered, walking out.

“So this is the Operation Puckleberry that Brit keeps hinting about?” Santana asked slowly. “What the hell does helping the gleeks have to do with you getting in Berry’s panties?”

Puck shrugged. “Ask your girlfriend.”

“And you’re still going with it?”

Puck shrugged. “Don’t say I never did nothin’ for y’all.”

Santana sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “You’re fucking crazy.”

“Right back at ya, bitch.”

“So what the hell do you need me for in glee?”

“I need you to sing with me.”

She looked back down at him as he pulled his shirt back on and stood up. “What song?”

Puck smirked. “ _Moves Like Jagger_.”

A slow smile spread across Satan’s face, and Puck knew she was totally game.

“By the way, devil spawn,” Puck said, leading the way back to the choir room, “you owe me now. So you gotta apologize to Schue and come back to glee.”

“Wait, _what_?” she demanded, freezing on the spot and forcing Puck to stop and turn to look at her. “I don’t owe you _anything_ , and Schue’s the one who kicked me out.”

“You owe me otherwise Brittany would’ve given you another ultimatum—oh, yeah, I _know_ about those. And _you’re_ the one who was spying on glee for _Adolfa_ Hilter,” Puck retorted coolly.

“I hate you.”

“You’re still singing with me, and you’re still gonna get on your knees and grovel for your place back in the glee club.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “What if I decide ‘fuck you and your assignment’ and join Shelby’s group instead?”

Puck shrugged and turned to walk away. “Then it’s your loss. There goes your shot at nationals and your chance to seduce Brittany with a stage.”

Needless to say, when Puck stood on the stage in the auditorium, armed with an electric guitar, Santana was right there next to him, smirking down at her girlfriend.

He really tried.

He _did_.

He tried his best not to look at _her_ , but, dude, it’s hard to _not_ sing the song to the person the song was actually _meant_ for.

 _“Just shoot for the stars if it feels right, and aim for my heart_. _”_ Come on. The “stars” thing alone already referenced Berry.

So when he’d walked off the stage and started strumming and walking along the dancing gleeks down in the seats and singing, _“I don't need to try to control you. Look into my eyes and I'll own you with the moves like Jagger. I've got the moves like Jagger,”_ his eyes were locked right onto Berry’s and she’d blushed and continued dancing with Mike and Tina. Thank God Finn was too busy falling over one row of seats when he tried spinning around.

The real scene-stealer, though, was when Santana jumped up onto one of the seats and pointed straight at Brittany when she sang, _“Take control, own me just for the night, but if I share my secret, you're gonna have to keep it. Nobody else can see this.”_

Schue didn’t even care that it was a pretty dirty song (dude, “ _Do You Wanna Touch Me”—_ if Schue didn’t mind that, he wouldn’t mind this), he congratulated Puck and only let Santana beg a _little bit_ before letting her back in as long as she promised to keep glee and cheerleading separate…and that Schue would feed her the information she’d relay back to Sylvester.

So all in all, in a was pretty good week so far, man. Pushed Santana out of the closet, got her back into glee, made Berry blush and gave her a solid, in-your-face-hint that he was _right fucking there_ , and got to spend another three nights with Beth.

Now for the last two days…


	5. Psycho Baby Mama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this marks where "Sour Patch Kid" officially becomes AU. One: I don't know how Santana ended up in Booty Camp if she got ejected from glee in the episode before. Therefore I shoved her back into the club. She didn't join Shelby and Mercedes. Two: In this story, Kurt is going to fashion school. He submitted his clothes (sans pirate and flamenco outfits, thanks to the Puckerone) and his application for early decision and everything. So he will obviously not be going to NYADA with Rachel. Three: Rachel, Kurt, and Brittany are still running for class president. The results of that election will be depend on the show. Four: Because I'm scared of the next episode's content (Quinn being crazy and potentially infecting Puck), I'm not going to depend on that story arc. I'm gonna take that in my own direction. Hence this chapter. Hence this long-ass author's note. So this is an AU story, but there are still details that will coincide with the actual show's story arc because I obviously want to stay as close to canon as I can.

He was serious about that whole fire-extinguishing-a-dweeb-thing. Like, truthfully, 80% of the situations he gets caught up in, he doesn’t even know how he got there in the first place.

For example: June 9th. He and Sam nearly got arrested for trespassing and property damage. In all honesty, they didn’t mean to. They were being chased by a rabid Rottweiler. The son of a bitch (literally) chased them out into Xavier Laeckl’s field where the old creeper just happened to be pruning his prize flowers. Of course, add up two teenage boys about to pass out from exhaustion, one demon-possessed beast from hell, a psychotic old man with anger management issues whose wife left him for a trapeze artist in a traveling circus, and some award-winning plants, and you’ve got one hell of a shitstorm on your hands. Thankfully, Officer Hartwell (yeah, _Brittany’s_ Officer Hartwell) had gotten earlier reports of an evil, rabid dog in the area, so Puck and Sam got off scot-free.

Example two: June 26th. Puck and Blaine randomly ran into each other at the gas station, and not even ten minutes after meeting up, some chick was screaming about them trying to rape her. They _still_ don’t know how that even started. One second, they’re going, “Oh, hey, dude. What’s up? Those pretzels are delicious!” and then all hell breaks loose because this psycho just starts screeching, “HELP! HELP! THEY’RE TRYING TO RAPE ME!”

It was the first and only time Puck ever heard Blaine say, “What the _fuck_?”

They got off scot-free with that too because the security tapes showed them doing _absolutely nothing._

Example three: July 9th. He was driving Berry to her dance class since Finn was working, the Fathers Berry were out of town, and her car was in the shop because a squirrel legit _died_ under her hood and no one could figure out how in the hell it got there in the first place. One minute, they’re singing along to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ at the top of their lungs, and the next second, they’re caught in a high speed chase which they later on found out involved an old lady with dementia who ran over a sergeant on his coffee break.

They were just cruising along, and next thing Puck knew, he was going 145MPH because the lady would _not_ stop tailgating him. It was like the front bumper of her old-ass Camry was magnetized to stick to the back of his truck, and even if he tried to move out of the way, she would not stop riding his ass.

It was this whole big thing, like _The Fast and the Furious: Lima Heights Edition_. News and police helicopters were shining their lights down in this spotlight with Puck’s truck right at the very front.

Puck was cussing like they were the only words he knew, Berry was just shrieking her head off, the sirens were blaring, the delusional old lady would not lay off her horn, the chopper blades were thudding, tires were screeching, and Survivor just kept singing, _“...and the last-known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and he’s watching us all with the eeeeeeye of the tiiigeeer...”_

So when Puck found himself laying down in his truck a bound-and-gagged body whose head was covered with a burlap sack, he really wasn’t all that surprised. He knew this was gonna happen one day, he’d just hoped it would’ve happened _after_ he’d gotten a second chance with Berry (which resulted in them getting hitched and living in New York) and seen Beth grow up and get married and all that other shit.

But he had to do what had to be done, and if that meant lugging around a body in the bed of his truck, then so be it. He was done with the crazy, he was done being stuck with these people who have these heart-warming moments that turn out to be sheer _chickenshit_ , and he was done pretending that he didn’t pay any attention to it. It was fucking _hard_ watching Mercedes and Quinn get these epiphanies that they’re beautiful or they’re strong and then watch them turn around and lose their minds.

Not like _emotionally_ hard.

No.

More like, “holy-shit-make-a-zombie-apocalypse-happen-so-these-two-can-either-die-or-develop-a- _big-picture_ -mentality” kind of hard.

What’s the point in taking a step forward if you’re just gonna take a flying leap back anyway? May as well just _not move at all_.

But Quinn just wasn’t really understanding Puck’s logic in that. That’s why she was lying in the bed of the truck instead of riding shotgun.

Puck didn’t think that being nice involved taking this many risks, but whatever. He risked _x_ amounts of days in prison for the fucktards—they owed him _bad_ now.

This psycho especially.

Yes, she was the mother of his child, but it’s not like he did that on _purpose_. (You know what he means, shut up.) Baby mama or not, he wasn’t gonna risk exposing Beth to any more sources of batshit—his ma and Berry would be enough, and at least those two had a _slightly_ better kind of batshit. They were, like, “obsessive-in-a-good-way” batshit while Quinn was “I’m-gonna-steal-your/my-child” batshit.

So as soon as she started talking about how Shelby was an incompetent mother and how Quinn was gonna take her to court for full custody of Beth, Puck knew he had to do something and do something fucking _fast_.

For a solid eight hours, he decided to get her thrown into a psych ward, and he’d taken a couple of steps in that direction too. Wrote down the phone number and plotted out a plan to get her caught up in a situation where she looked abso-fucking-lutely crazy, and it _legit_ wouldn’t take him that much effort to stage shit since she was almost to that point anyway.

(Jesus! What was with his long-ass fucking sentences all of a sudden?! Fucking Berry!)

But then Berry texted to remind him to be on time tomorrow night and asked him to reconsider and bring his ma and sister along. He made the mistake of replying, “Dn’t hav shrt-trm memry loss, bby. Quit naggin. N FUCK NO.” She launched into this sixteen-text-long tirade that he completely ignored except for when she told him about her plans later that afternoon.

So he improvised.

He tossed the psych ward phone number and told Sam to call off the pink-wig ambush before abducting Quinn as she stepped out of her house for a smoke.

Thank God that even though the idiot didn’t _actually_ know Kung Fu, Chang knew just the right pressure point to knock someone out, and thank God he was dumb enough to actually think teaching the move to Puck was a harmless idea.

So even though it was like 5 in the afternoon, it was just way too fucking easy to abduct the girl. He’d have to tell her to move someplace where the neighbors were much nosier. Those bastards can save your life, man. If the Puckermans didn’t have Mrs. Venturi, Mr. Martinez, and Mrs. Edmunds shoving their noses right up against their windows all the time, Bekah would’ve been kidnapped a long time ago.

Anyway, Puck pulled into the shady gravel parking lot of the park and scowled at what he was about to do. He hopped out of the truck and glanced around, checking to see if there were any cops around before jumping into the bed of his truck, unstrapping Quinn from the floor so she couldn’t sit up in the middle of traffic, and propping her up. He pulled the burlap sack off her head, revealing bloodshot eyes and the hair of an electrocuted Barbie doll.

“Don’t fight me, okay?” he said calmly.

She just continued to glare up at him with one of the most creepy and scary-ass glares he’d ever gotten in his life. It was like she was saying, _I won’t fight you. Because ramming my foot right into the family jewels is considered “kicking your ass” and not actually “fighting.”_

“You need to see something, and you wouldn’t have gone with me—not without ripping off my balls—so I had to do it this way.”

She just kept glaring. _Just like how I’m gonna have to hit you upside the head with a crowbar, lock you in the truck, and push it into the lake._

“If you hit me, I will not hesitate to hit you back and claim self-defense, you get me?”

_If I hit you, you’re not gonna be alive to hit me back._

“Okay, maybe this wasn’t one of my more brilliant ideas, but—”

“JUSH GECK ME OUCK O’ ZISH!” she finally barked through the gag.

“You’re not gonna hit me?” Puck asked warily, reaching out to her bound wrists.

“FUCK!”

He guessed that she was trying to say his name, but it didn’t work out so great. He grabbed her wrists and pulled out his pocketknife to cut the cords and went to work on her ankles as she yanked off the gag and started whipping him with the rope.

“You—son—of—a—bitch!”

“Woman! I have a knife in my hand, and it’s an inch from your leg! Stop!”

She stopped long enough for him to untie her legs and help her out of the truck bed before launching herself at him.

“You—are—such—a—”

“Quinn! _Stop!_ ”

“— _lunatic_! If—Beth—ends—up—inheriting—your—serial—killer—genes—”

“WHAT?! What the fuck?!”

“—you—will—have— _hell_ —to—pay!”

“Are you fucking done now?! Jesus Christ!”

She threw one last solid kick to his shin before tossing the rope back into the truck bed and crossing her arms over her chest. “Why the _hell_ did you drag me out here, Puck? It’s a _park_ for God’s sake, not an elephant graveyard or something.”

He frowned through the haze of pain she inflicted on him. “Elephant _what_?”

She blushed. “I was watching _The Lion King_ with Beth the other night. Answer the question.”

He scowled and straightened up before grabbing her wrist and dragging her into the park.

“Let go of me! I can walk by myself!” she protested.

He stopped to level a dark glare at her. “Do you want me to gag you again? Shut the fuck up and follow me.”

The park was pretty empty since it was Thursday and people had jobs and homework to attend to, so it wasn’t hard to finally spot Berry. He grabbed Quinn and ducked behind a big oak tree near where Berry was laid out on a picnic blanket.

“What—”

“Climb the tree,” he hissed, grabbing her waist and hoisting her up to a low branch.

She complied without _too much_ of a fight (she kicked him in the ribs on the way up), and he clambered up after her. By the time he settled himself on the branch next to her, she was glaring at him again.

“You _kidnapped me_ so we could spy on Beth, Shelby, and Manhands, Puck? Seriously?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “One: Berry has the girliest fucking hands I’ve ever held before, Fabray. You’ve got more manly hands than she does, so stop with that stupid insult. Two: we’re _observing_ , not _spying_. There’s a difference. Three: just shut the fuck up and listen to me because if _I’m_ the voice of reason, it means it’s damn-well time for you to have your reality check.”

“Who do you think you—”

“I don’t _think_ , psycho, I _know_ that I’m a guy who’s got a much better grip on reality than you do,” he cut her off, grabbing the top of her head and forcibly pivoting her to face the spot where Berry was currently tickling Beth on her lap while Shelby was pouring juice into a sippy cup. That was probably the only reason why Shelby and Berry were semi-getting along: Beth.

Berry loved little kids.

“That right there is one very fucked up family,” Puck said. “Did you know that? A girl hanging out with her estranged biological mother whose new adopted daughter happens to be the biological daughter of her ex-boyfriend who knocked up his best friend’s girlfriend. Name one part of that entire sentence that’s _not_ fucked up.”

“What’s your point?” Quinn hissed, slapping his hand away.

“My point is exactly that.” He motioned toward the trio (and mentally cooed at his daughter— _his daughter_!—when he saw her grin up at Berry). “That is so fucked up, but the truth is that Shelby is fucking _trying_ , Fabray.”

“Trying and _failing_ ,” Quinn corrected him, sneering.

He _legit_ had to keep from smacking her upside the head. He had to remember that even nudging her a little might actually push her off the branch, and as appealing as that idea might be, Berry would murder him, bring him back to life, and then lecture him back to death.

“Could you quit being so fucking selfish all the damn time? Jesus, Fabray. The one _unselfish_ thing you ever did is the thing you’re trying to undo,” he growled, trying to keep from yelling at her and alerting Berry and Shelby to the fact that he and Quinn were up a fucking _tree_. “Look, Shelby came back from New York for so many different reasons that you should be fucking thankful for. She’s here to try and patch things up with Berry—which would be good for everyone ‘cause she might actually stop being so goddamn crazy all the time. She’s here to give you and me a chance to be in Beth’s life without having to actually be responsible for her so we can focus on school and college and shit. She’s here to ask for fucking _help_ because being a single mom in New York is _hard_ , and I’d prefer that she ask for help _here_ than in some huge-ass city that’ll just...”

He trailed off uselessly when he got a gut feeling that everything he was saying just blew past her head.

He _really_ wanted to push her off the tree then. And if she survived, he’d call that damn psych ward.

She just kept staring down at Beth while Puck took a few deep, even breaths to keep from killing the fucking baboon in front of him.

“You know what, Fabray?”

She looked up at him with cold eyes.

“I can’t even call you a bitch ‘cause putting you in the same category as Satan is a fucking insult to _her_. You’re worse than Karofsky, and you’re worse than all those other dumb fucks in this town because you know what? _You’re_ gonna be the goddamn Lima Loser. Berry is this small little fucking star that gets brighter and brighter until she hits New York and becomes this big-ass star that’ll shine ‘til the universe collapses into itself, but you? You’re like this goddamn huge-ass star that burned too hot too fast, and you’re about to fucking implode because you wanted _everything_ , and you got it. But then you burned it up and _wasted_ it.”

She glared at him as he calmly shifted on the branch and began to climb down.

“And you know what? I fucking hate you. I hate your guts. I hate that you think the whole damn world is out to get you, and I hate that you think you’ve got it so bad and that Beth being here means you got re-saddled with the responsibility of being her mom. But you know what sucks for you? You’re _not_ her mom. And until you finally grow the fuck up and understand that what you _want_ isn’t what you _need_ , you’re never gonna have what it takes to be a mom. Glad to see you fucking checked out during sectionals two years ago.”

Then he climbed down the tree and stomped back toward his truck. But because wasn’t an asshole or a complete insult to humanity like Quinn, he sat in his truck and waited for her.

And when she clambered into the passenger seat, he switched on the radio to whatever station it was that played that scary-ass death metal music Lauren liked so much and tried to use those bloodcurdling screams to distract him from the fact that she was fucking infecting the air he was breathing.

They were almost halfway back to her house when he suddenly sighed.

Puck was the most badass motherfucker in the whole Midwest. One little blonde psycho wasn’t gonna dethrone him.

He slammed on the brakes and jerked the car around. He relished the way Quinn shrieked a little when she hit the door.

“What the hell, Puck?!” she screeched, rubbing her shoulder.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he growled, making another sharp left that threw her into the door again.

“What? You’re gonna lecture me some more?” she scoffed, adjusting herself in the seat.

“Shut up, you. You’re pissin’ me off somethin’ fierce, and unless you want me to toss you out the damn window, I suggest you sit there like a fucking _mute_.”

She scoffed, but thankfully she didn’t say anything else. He kept driving until he finally pulled into the driveway of a cream-colored two-story house.

“Get out,” he said simply, shutting off the ignition and shoving open his door.

“Where are—wait, what are you doing?” she hissed.

Kidnapping _and_ B &E? His chances of getting his ass thrown into jail just keeps getting higher and higher the more he tries to help these idiots.

Well...technically it’s not breaking and entering if you have a key, right?

Puck tipped over Hiram Berry’s potted topiary and peeled back the duct tape that held the spare key to the bottom of the pot. He unlocked the front door and nudged (pushed) Quinn inside. The Fathers Berry didn’t get home until around 8 on Thursdays, and Berry was still at the park with Beth. They’d be fine.

“You see this house?” he said, slamming the door behind him and kicking off his shoes.

“I wish I didn’t.”

“What did I say earlier? Shut the fuck up. That was a rhetorical question,” Puck snapped, grabbing her shoulder and propelling her into the living room.

The first time he’d come in here, he felt like he’d been punched in the eye. He was seeing stars all over the place, and no matter how many times he blinked, those shiny little fuckers wouldn’t disappear.

The living room itself was actually pretty nice. You know, if you don’t mind the seventeen full-sized portraits of Berry lined up around the walls—one taken for every year of her life—framed with streaks of _shiny gold stars_. Trophies and ribbons were nearly overflowing every fucking shelf and—

The room was a shrine to Rachel Berry. Plain and simple. It was a shrine, but like a sweet, “I-just- _love_ -my-daughter” kind of shrine. Not like Jew-fro’s infamous shrine...which was just, like, 198,458,394,729 levels of hella-creepy.

“You see all this?” he asked again, motioning to the _ludicrous_ amounts of _Rachel_ just _surrounding_ them. “What does all this tell you?”

“That her dads are just as crazy as she is.”

“RHETORICAL!” he barked. “Look, what I’m trying to say is imagine Rachel living with Shelby. What do you think that would’ve been like? They’d be at some stanky-ass two-bedroom apartment with an AC that doesn’t work and a bathtub that floods when you don’t stomp your foot on the floor right. Here with her dads, she’s got a good fucking life. She can exercise her little ass off, she can sing to her heart’s content without being arrested for disturbing the peace, she can be who she wants to be without worrying about keeping a roof on her head every three days.”

“It wouldn’t be like that with Beth!” Quinn protested, raking her fingers through her hair. “Our moms could help us and—”

“Oh, yeah, while Rachel and Shelby would have to worry about making ends meet, Beth would be worrying that Mom and Dad are gonna fucking kill each other. Quinn, it’s not fucking right! And _if_ you manage to get full custody of Beth, you and I would have to go to court and battle for who’d get primary custody of her. You _know_ that shit’s not gonna work out!”

“You don’t know if it won’t work out either!” she cried, her eyes beginning to pool with tears.

“Yeah, I fucking do! We’d get the fuck through it, but it’s gonna be hard as shit! _Everyone’s_ gonna walk away with some sort of emotional damage! Is that what you want?! Are you so fucking dead-set on ruining everyone’s fucking lives?! _You’re_ the one who backed out! _You’re_ the one who made the fucking decision to give up Beth! You didn’t even give me a chance to do fucking _anything_ , but you know what? I agreed because it was for the best! Even _I_ —the fucking alleged Lima Loser that ruined your fucking life forever—knew that you and I couldn’t handle raising a baby at our ages! And _you_ …”

He threw his hands up into the air and turned away from her to stare at one big-ass golden star ornament on the wall.

“You just fucking _turned your back_ on Beth all last year! When you were dating Evans, everything was fine, but then you got back together with Finnessa, and it all went to shit! You got all obsessed with being prom queen, and whatever progress you made just got thrown out the damn window!”

She was _legitimately_ crying now—tears running down her face, and she was hugging her arms around herself. “You don’t have the _right_ to talk to me like—”

“ _That!_ ” he roared. “ _That_ right there is why you’re so fucked up, Quinn! You think you’re on this goddamn pedestal in this bright-as-fuck spotlight. You _know_ you’re a bitch, you _know_ you’ve got problems, but the one thing that you’re not wrapping your head around: YOU SUCK. Yeah, so you’ve got the babysitting chops to take care of a kid, but it’s a full-time job, and you have school. You either take care of the baby or you take care of yourself, but either way, you wouldn’t be taking care of _anybody_. Are you fucking understanding what I’m saying? Because I’m fucking _hungry_ right now, and I’m just saying whatever shit comes to mind because I’m pissed, I’m hungry, and you’re just hella weird right—”

“I GOT IT!” she finally shrieked, wiping her face with her sleeve. “I got it! Just…shut up now, okay?!”

She slumped onto the couch, but Puck kept standing.

“God…I just…” she muttered, dropping her head into her hands. “I just wanted to make things right. I want my baby back. If I couldn’t have my life because I’d screwed it up so bad, I wanted my baby back. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, but dealing with Finn and being prom queen helped me to ignore it a little, but…I still wanted her, Puck. I’ll _always_ want her. I wanna spoil her and dress her up in pretty dresses and put her into all the competitions she wants so she can have more trophies than Rachel, I just…I _want_ her. I want her to call _me_ ‘Mommy’ not…something else. She was _mine first_.”

“Well, she’s here now,” he said quietly, still not making a move toward Quinn who was now using the edge of her shirt to dry her eyes. “Don’t waste the opportunity, but don’t go fucking overboard. You got an inch, don’t take a mile.”

**~oOo~**

He pulled up in front of her house, and she started stuffing the tissues she got from Berry’s living room into her pockets. She looked out the window for a second, and Puck reached out to squeeze her hand a little.

“So…?”

She sniffled and cleared her throat before swallowing and looking straight ahead out the windshield. “I’m not gonna fight for full custody.”

“Good.”

“But—”

“Jesus Christ, please, no more.”

“Shut up, Puckerman. I’m not gonna fight for full custody, but you were wrong,” she said, pushing the door open.

“I said, like, three thousand things. What the fuck was I wrong about?”

“About me not knowing I suck. Trust me. I know.”

Then she hopped out of the truck and slammed the door behind her, making Puck flinch at the abuse his car was getting from this girl.

“Hey, Fabray!”

She turned back around to face him. “What is it now?”

Berry was gonna fucking kill him, but…

“You wanna come with me? To dinner tomorrow night?”

Her eyes widened, and she leaned away from him. “Puck, we tried dating before, I don’t—”

“ _What?_ Fuck no. Berry invited Shelby, Beth, and me to her house for dinner tomorrow night for like a bonding experience or something. I wanted to see if you’d complete the family and come too…”

Quinn smiled. It was small and a little tired, but it was the best expression he’d seen on her face since last year. “No.”

She didn’t give him more of an explanation, but when he watched her walk into her house through the open window, he saw her mom come up to her. And then Quinn just _crumpled._ Her mom caught her before she dropped to the ground, just _sobbing_.

Puck sighed as he pulled out onto the road again.

The entire fucking glee club needed therapy.

**~oOo~**

 “Noah! You’re early!”

“What?! It’s six fifty-eight, Berry! I’m like two minutes early!”

“It’s improper to arrive before the time agreed upon.”

“Better early than late.”

“It’s still improper.”

“Would you rather I show up late and be like, ‘Better late than never’?”

“No, I’d rather you be on time.”

“Berry, this ain’t an atomic watch. I’m not gonna stand out here and wait until the seconds get to _exactly_ zero ‘til I start knocking on your door.”

“It’s not such a ludicrous idea, Noah, I’ve done it before. Then my hosts open the door with impressed expressions when they see how punctual I am.”

“I’m _sure_ you have, baby. So is there another proper amount of time I should be standing out here before you let me in or something?”

Her big brown eyes widened, and she jumped back to let him in. “I’m so sorry, Noah! It completely slipped my mind. You should really check on the proper way to attend dinner parties so you won’t make any other little mistakes that can reflect very poorly on the way your host sees you. I have a wonderful book on party etiquette that you are free to borrow—”

“’Cause I spend all my free time reading about shit like that, Berry.”

She glared up at him as she led him into the living room. “It also has a chapter about speech etiquette that I’m sure would _behoove_ you to read.”

He smirked and leaned over her shoulder as she walked in front of him. “Well, I know some exercises that would _behoove_ you to engage in.”

She swallowed loudly and almost _jogged_ into the living room where the Shelby, Beth, and the Fathers Berry were already chilling.

“Hey, Berries!” Puck said, smirking and bumping fists with Leroy and rubbing Hiram’s bald head before making a beeline for Beth.

The kid cooed and squealed as he scooped her out of Shelby’s outstretched arms and blew raspberries into her neck, making her shriek with laughter. His kid was just so fucking adorable. He spent the next few minutes completely oblivious to everything around him except for Beth because every time he’d poke her in just this _one spot_ , she wouldn’t giggle. She’d give him this look like, _You need to stop that right now_. It was fucking _hilarious_.

It wasn’t until Rachel walked back into the living room to tell them that dinner was ready did he realize _exactly_ where he was.

And then he was like, _Holy shit, what the hell am I doing here?_

He was sitting right a-fucking-cross from Leroy Berry at the opposite ends of the table while Beth and Rachel were sitting on his right, and Shelby and Hiram were on his left. And even though he wasn’t _all that uncomfortable_ seating-position-wise, the conversation was just _bad_.

Especially if Rachel was the one leading it.

“So, Noah, how was school?”

What the fuck?

“Uh, good, I guess.”

“How are you doing in English? Have my notes been helping you?”

He nodded through a mouthful of challah.

Shelby was grinning at the exchange, but her choice of words wasn’t the best. “Aren’t you proud of him, _Mom_?” Then she flinched and grimaced at Rachel’s wide-eyed expression.

Leroy cleared his throat and tried a new topic. “Hiram, how was your doctor’s appointment earlier?”

“Oh, yes, Daddy had to get vaccinated,” Rachel explained to Shelby, trying to ease the older woman a little. “He hates them, so he puts them off as much as he can.”

“Contrary to popular belief, needles don’t scare me as much anymore.” Hiram answered. “Besides, the smaller ones don’t hurt as much as the bigger ones.”

And because God and Satan know exactly how dirty Puck’s mind is, he couldn’t help but do a mental _that’s-what-she-said_ that made him snort into his water a little. And judging from the way the right side of Leroy’s lip was curling upward, he knew _exactly_ what Puck had been thinking.

“And unfortunately, since I’d told Dr. Ross about my previous aversion to needles, she prolonged the process by incessantly asking me if I was ready,” Hiram continued, totally oblivious. “So I had to tell her to hurry up and just stick it in there already.”

Puck had to fake a coughing fit to hide his laugh, but Leroy still maintained that smirk as he calmly kept eating.

“Noah, are you all right?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he rasped, taking another huge gulp of water.

“Don’t eat too fast, Noah,” she reminded him gently.

“It must be because this matzah ball soup is delicious, Rachel,” Hiram said, beaming. “These balls are _perfect_. I just can’t get enough.”

And that sent Puck into a fresh round of coughs that managed to finally get a chuckle out of Leroy Berry.

“Thank you, Daddy,” Rachel said, shooting a worried glance in Puck’s direction. “It was a wet and sticky process, but it paid off in the end.”

DEAR GOD.

“Puck, are you sure you’re okay?” Shelby asked, setting her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he croaked. “Just swallowed wrong, but, yeah, Rach, these are really good.”

Rachel grinned. “Thank you!”

“I tasted a horrible recipe one time,” Hiram said, “but since it was at a dinner party, I just had to close my eyes and shove it in my mouth. They were small, slimy, and a little salty so I had to swallow quickly before I gagged.”

“ _Okay_!” Leroy blurted out. “How about this kugel, eh? Amazing!”

“Yes,” Hiram agreed. “Macaroni and cheese is still my favorite pasta dish, but I just love these particular noodles. They slide in your mouth much easier.”

Leroy coughed a little. “Um, Hiram—”

“I had a different type of noodle before too. These were thicker, and I can’t seem to remember the name, but the chef told me not to be threatened by the thickness and that it wouldn’t be too hard to swallow.”

And that was enough. Both Puck and Leroy burst out laughing; they had to excuse themselves from the table as they held on to the wall and laughed until they were on the verge of tears.

The rest of the dinner wasn’t as bad. Unfortunately, it just got awkward. And not, like, _funny_ awkward like before. This was just _awkward_. After Leroy had explained to Hiram (in a whisper) _exactly_ why he and Puck had been laughing, Hiram just sat there quietly and blushed, so it was up to Rachel, Shelby, and Leroy to supply the conversation.

At first it was all right because Rachel supplied some pretty simple conversation—school, work, the dichotomy of good and evil implanted within the educational system. But then as Shelby continued to reply and give her two cents, Leroy started making subtle remarks and snide comments about Shelby which gave Puck the impression that Leroy was the one who’d held the most serious grudge in the Berry family.

The remarks just got worse and until Shelby just kept to one or two-word answers. It got so bad that Puck even tried to contribute to the conversation even though all he could give was that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and that Trigonometry was kicking him in the nads. It was still bad, though, and he couldn’t take much more of it.

Thankfully, he’d found his scapegoat.

“Aw, squirt, look what you did,” he said, reaching out to cover Beth’s hands with his napkin. “You got knish stuff all up in Rachel’s hair.”

The little girl grinned and threw the napkin back at Puck as Rachel calmly turned, grimaced, and used her own napkin to cover and isolate the entire right side of her hair which was littered with little crumbs and tiny dots of mashed potatoes and cheese.

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said, pushing her chair back and lifted Beth from the high chair. “Come on, sweetie. You look done, so let’s go clean up, huh?”

Shelby passed the diaper bag over the table, and Rachel took it before walking out of the dining room.

“You need some help?” Puck asked, motioning to stand.

“No, no, that’s fine,” Rachel said, waving her hand dismissively before cooing at Beth, “We’ll be fine, right, sweetie?”

Beth giggled and smeared a mashed potato-covered hand across Rachel’s cheek.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ve changed Beth before, Noah.”

“Yeah, but she’s all messy and sh— _crap_.”

“I’ve babysat before, Noah. I’m perfectly capable of getting Beth out of these clothes and getting her all cleaned up.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re _capable_ , but—”

 _“Noah,”_ Rachel said, giving him a sincere look. “We’ll be _fine_.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Positive?”

“Noah!”

Beth giggled and Rachel rolled her eyes before heading out.

Puck grimaced and sat back down. He got one scoop of kugel in his mouth before he realized that every adult at the table was smirking at him.

“So, Puck,” Shelby said, taking a sip of water. “How long have you been crushing on Rachel?”

Puck blanched. “Is that a scream? I think I heard a scream. I’m gonna go help Ber— _Rachel_ —with Beth.”

He shot up out of his seat and practically sprinted out of the dining room and up the stairs. He found them in the guest bathroom. Beth was sitting on a blanket-covered section of the counter, and she and Rachel were playing tug-of-war with a yellow wash cloth.

“I thought you said you could handle this, Berry,” Puck said with a smirk, leaning against the doorframe.

“Noah, Beth and I were simply playing a game. I’m fully capable of taking the cloth out of her hands if I honestly felt like it,” she cooed in a baby voice as she continued tugging.

Puck snorted and nudged her to the side as he snatched the wash cloth out of their hands and set it on top of Beth’s head like a hood. Then he took her little hands and pressed her palms together.

“Baby Mother Mary,” he said flatly.

“Noah—”

“Lighten up, Berry,” Puck said, smirking as Beth pouted and tried to snatch the cloth off her head.

He wet the cloth and started to wipe food off the little munchkin’s face as Rachel popped open the box of wipes.

“So, about you running for president...?” he asked, undoing Beth’s diaper and pulling it aside.

She flinched and rested her hip against the edge of the counter. “Do you think I was right in submitting my candidacy, Noah?”

“No.”

She blinked, shocked at his bluntness. “B-But—”

“Frankly, my hot little Jewish-American princess, you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons. Diaper. Thanks. Kurt wants to change the world. Brittany wants to change the world. You just want the title ‘cause it’s your senior year, and you thought that Mercedes was gonna get Maria.”

“That’s not _entirely_ true, I could—”

“No, you couldn’t.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to—”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you—”

“Uh-huh.”

“No—”

“Yep.”

“Noah, stop interrupt—”

“No.”

“Can’t you at least let me ex—”

“Nothing to explain, baby. I know what you were thinking, and you want me to be truthful? No one would vote for you. I’m not trying to be mean, I don’t wanna make you cry, and I’m seriously not trying to put you down or anything, but it’s the truth. Brittany’s got sway ‘cause she’s a Cheerio and she’s hot. Kurt’s got sway ‘cause he’s gay. The only sway you got is in your ass.”

“Noah!”

“It’s true. Dress please.”

He held Beth’s little hands as Rachel slipped them through the sleeves and then pulled it down over her head, but the kid kept giggling and tilting her head back and forth, dodging the hole.

Puck narrowed his eyes and wiggled her hands a little. “Beth.”

_Twist, twist, twist._

“ _Beth_.”

 _Twist, twist, twist, shimmy_.

“Beth, do you want me to tickle you?”

She stopped for a solid two seconds, but Rachel wasn’t quick enough to pull the dress down. _Twist, twist, twist, shimmy, kick, kick, giggle._

“That’s it!” Rachel announced. “Tickle time!”

Squeals, shrieks, and screams erupted from the bathroom as Puck and Rachel teamed up and tickled either side of the little girl. She still had her head hidden in her dress, and her arms were sticking out of the sleeves, desperately trying to slap away the hands that were poking at her.

“Grand finale?” Rachel asked between laughs.

Puck grinned, reading her mind. “Grand finale.”

He lifted the dress over Beth’s head and blew raspberries against her soft tummy, making her shriek at such a high note he could’ve sworn something glass had shattered. When her shrieks turned to gasping, Puck pulled back, pulled the dress down, lifted her off the counter to let the little girl rest on his shoulder, her head tucked against his neck as she tried to catch her breath again.

Rachel smiled and stroked her little blonde curls from her face as she rubbed Beth’s back with her other hand. “Aw, she’s all tired out.”

Beth sighed and started rubbing the tail of Puck’s Mohawk, making him smirk.

“All that food-tossing and laughing,” Puck said, gently bouncing her up and down.

“She’ll start falling asleep soon. Let’s get her milk from Shelby,” Rachel said, grabbing the diaper bag and blanket from the counter and following him out of the bathroom.

“Seriously, though, Rach, about the president thing…”

“Don’t worry, Noah,” she said quietly, wiggling Beth’s big toe and making the little girl smile. “I’ll have my hands full with the school play, so I’ll resign from the running and leave Brittany and Kurt to duke it out. I’m at risk of losing all my friends, and after Mercedes—”

“Don’t even get me started on that chick.”

“Well, after her, Kurt approached me about my candidacy, and as much as I want to put myself out there, I won’t do it at the risk of losing my closest friends. I promised to support Kurt, and I can’t do that if I’m too busy campaigning.”

Puck smirked and nudged her with his elbow as they descended the stairs. “Good.”

Nice to know she saw reason much faster than Quinn. Puck hardly had to even lecture her.

Jesus, he’s been doing _way_ too much of that shit nowadays.

Holy shit, he’s actually said more in the last two months than he’s ever said in his life. Shit needs to _end_. Conserve his words and all that.

She stopped him in the middle of the staircase and turned him to face her. She stood a couple steps above him so they were eye-to-eye.

“Noah, I have to thank you,” she said quietly, glancing toward the dining room like she could see straight through the wall.

“For what now, Berry?”

“For…trying to save dinner,” she answered. “I’ll admit that your outburst was bizarre and seemingly random, but I’m glad that you found something amusing and enjoyed yourself. It was your attempts to steer the conversation away from whatever history there is between Dad and Shelby and how you saved the both of us by pointing out Beth’s food attacks.”

“I dunno what you’re talking about, Berry,” he scoffed, looking anywhere but those damn brown eyes.

She set her hand on his shoulder. “Noah—”

She stopped because Beth suddenly reached out and wrapped the little hand that wasn’t gripping the tail of Puck’s Mohawk around Rachel’s thumb and sighed.

When Puck looked up again, Rachel had taken a step down so she was closer to him and their faces were _thismuch_ apart.

You’d think that ‘cause her name is “Berry,” she’d smell fruity. No. She smelled like sugar cookies. And we all know how much Puck loves those goddamn world-famous sugar cookies.

“You’re welcome, Rach,” he muttered, feeling her breath brush against his mouth.

If cheating could be measured by percent, 100% being a full kiss, Rachel and Puck cheated by 1% before Puck snapped out of it and pulled his head back and cleared his throat loudly.

“Let’s go,” he said roughly turning back and heading down the rest of the way.

“Rachel? Puck? We’re in the living room now!” Hiram called out.

Puck and Rachel walked into the living room with Beth and were greeted with three pairs of raised eyebrows and three smug smirks. Puck wanted to slap them all.

“We brought dessert out here and cleared the table already,” Shelby said, breaking the silence and holding up her little plate. “Rachel, this apple cake is the best I’ve ever tasted.”

Rachel smiled warmly. “Thank you.”

“Shelby, where’s Beth’s milk?” Puck asked.

“Oh, it’s in the other bag,” she said, getting up. “I’ll make it.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Rachel stopped her. “I’ll get it. Noah, go sit down.”

“I’ll come with you.”

She blinked at him, and for a second, he thought she was gonna stop him, but instead she blinked again and led him toward the kitchen. He didn’t risk looking back and seeing Shelby and the Fathers Berry give him that fucking look again.

By the time they got back into the living room with Beth sucking on her bottle, the three idiots had full-fledged grins and were actually chuckling at some joke they must’ve made before Puck and Rachel got back.

It was pretty laid-back after that. The three of them must’ve bonded at Puck’s expense, but whatever. They made a little small-talk and cracked a couple of jokes until Beth finally conked out and Shelby announced that it was time for her to go. Once she left, Puck helped clear the dessert plates before Leroy saw the time and kicked him out.

Hiram made him promise to never tell anyone about their dinner conversation and Rachel gave him a weird, embarrassed smile before disappearing into the kitchen, and Leroy walked him to his truck.

“Glad you came tonight, Puck,” Leroy said.

“Yeah, thanks for having me,” Puck said, unlocking the car.

“How is, uh, Quinn?”

Puck didn’t let his grimace show. “She’s fine.”

Leroy gave him a knowing look. “I’m sure she is, kid. Listen, Puck, I don’t want to sound like a bastard, but…”

“Sir?”

“She’s taken, son. And I’ve heard enough about your history, but I like you. Finn’s a good guy, but…you know.”

Puck blinked and didn’t know whether or not to frown, swallow, or say something. So he just stood there.

“Well,” Leroy said, clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his head nervously, “now that we’ve solidified my standing as a full-blown _woman,_ I’m going back inside. Feel free to visit anytime, kid. You and Sam are always welcome.”

“Uh, thanks…Mr. Berry?”

Well, that was a fun night.


	6. Frickin' Diva

The sounds of an electric guitar strummed softly out of the choir room, and Rachel, being a devout lover of all things music—especially _good_ music—felt herself being drawn to the sound.

Only one person she knew personally could play that well.

Only one person had that voice.

_“...only a man in a silly red sheet, digging for kryptonite on this one-way street. Only a man in a funny red sheet, looking for special things inside of me...inside of me...”_

Puck was reclined in one of the chairs on the far-left side of the risers, his legs sprawled out in front of him as he lazily plucked at the plugged-in electric guitar. He usually liked acoustic, but Bekah was obsessing over those YouTube guys—Royce Boulevard? Voice Road? Whatever. She was obsessing over their covers of some songs, and she had this one on repeat all freaking night, so it was stuck in his head.

And as soon as _that_ embarrassing thought passed, he let the lyrics and music fade into one of his own compositions, foregoing the singing. He was about to go into a more complicated rendition of the chorus, when his Jewish-American ninja-princess decided to finally duck out from behind the door like some creepy spy.

“Noah!” she cooed with her hands clasped under her chin, making him jump about three feet into the air. “That’s _amazing_! You should let Finn hear that sometime.”

He kept his cool, though, and let the song fade. “Why? Song’s been sung. No sense in changing anything.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Nationals or not, there are always little things that can make songs better.”

He frowned. “You gotta learn when to stop, though. Keep changing things, and you’re gonna end up with something totally different than what you started out with.”

She shrugged, her eyes locked on the way his fingers continued to effortlessly pluck out a simple melody. “Then maybe it’s better that way.”

“It’s _never_ better that way,” Puck said, almost grimacing at the two conversations they were having. “You end up losing what made the song great in the first place.”

“If there’s room for improvement, Noah, then the opportunity should be seized.”

“There’s a difference between room for improvement and fixing something that ain’t broken.”

She scowled at him. “Much like how your grammar is broken? You know better than that, and please don’t use your conservation-of-syllables theory because that would only reduce the world to communicating in grunts as if we’re all telepathic Neanderthals. If you choose to say something, say it...” she trailed off when she saw his bored look.

She took a seat at the piano, plucking a few chords out on the right side of the keyboard. He recognized the opening of that Jon McLoughlin song they danced to at prom.

“If you can make something the best it can be, why would you hold yourself back?” she asked, letting the song drift off into something else.

It took him less than half a second to make out the first notes of one of his ma’s favorite songs.

He sighed. “‘Cause sometimes something can be _its_ best without having to be _the_ best.”

Hell, yeah, he was a deep motherfucker. And since his ma wasn’t the only one who liked this song, he stood up, unplugged the electric, set it on its stand, picked up the acoustic, and perched himself on the stool next to the baby grand.

Berry smiled when she saw his new position, and started to actually play the song instead of just errantly pushing keys.

 _“See the stone set in your eyes. See the thorn twist in your side. I wait for you,”_ she sang softly, not at all in her Broadway voice.

He found his chord immediately, and he suppressed a smirk that even though he and Rachel didn’t always see eye-to-eye (literally and figuratively), they always managed to find each other on the same music staff.

Puck leaned forward and took the next verse. _“Sleight of hand and twist of fate. On a bed of nails, she makes me wait, and I wait without you.”_

 _“With or without you,”_ they sang  together softly. _“With or without you.”_

Puck noticed three things, and he was pretty sure she noticed them too. One: they _still_ sounded _phenomenal_ together. Two: there were goosebumps on both their arms. Three: her eyes weren’t leaving his face, and Satan herself couldn’t rip his eyes away from her.

Who was this chick’s boyfriend again...?

 _“Through the storm we reach the shore,”_ Puck crooned, and Rachel joined in, _“You give it all, but I want more. And I'm waiting for you. With or without you...with or without you. I can't live with or without you...”_

 _Fuck_ , forget foreplay. Just let her sing a few bars of this song with him, and they’d both be ready to go. But because Puck managed to remember that Rachel’s boyfriend was Finn, he cleared his throat and rested his wrist and forearm on the guitar.

“Why didn’t you respond to my texts?” he asked.

She finally dropped her eyes and let the song fade. “I didn’t think a response was necessary.”

_Berry, quit freaking out. It didn’t even count as a legit kiss. Nothing happened._

That was the most recent text he’d sent her. He even typed out full words just for her damn benefit.

He’d been texting her ever since Friday night when he got home because he _knew_ she’d be hyperventilating about their 1% Kiss. And apparently he was right because she never even responded—which says a lot because Rachel Berry will _always_ have the last word. Even if you’d said “ok,” she’ll end it with something like, “All right then.” Then, of course, come Monday, she went all ninja-Berry on his ass. The only parts of her he saw for the last couple days (up until today) was the ends of her hair disappearing into classrooms or around corners.

So even if they just sang the most epic duet the halls of McKinley High ever heard, he knew she was still upset.

“Rach,” he said quietly, nudging the piano stool with his foot so she would look up at him. “Nothing happened.”

She smiled at his attempt to reassure her. “Yes, it did.”

And before her words could fully sink in, the goddamn gleeks filtered in, Schue right behind them with that new Rory kid.

And as Puck set the guitar back onto its stand, Santana grabbed the back of his collar to hiss in his ear, “Second floor stairwell after glee, _pendejo_ , we gots a _lot_ of shit to discuss.”

**~oOo~**

“Oh, what the hell is _this_ now?!” Puck demanded, climbing up the stairs and seeing all the people waiting for him on the landing.

“We heard the song, Puck,” Kurt said, his eyes narrowed.

“Which was _awesome_ , by the way,” Blaine added. “Boyce Avenue and Kina Grannis’s cover was good, but yours and Rachel’s was just twelve levels of amazing.”

“But that’s not why you’re here, player,” Satan said with a brief glare at Blaine.

Brittany frowned in confusion. “I thought it was.”

“Not _that_ song, Brittany,” Kurt said. “The other one—‘Pretending,’ remember?”

Puck’s eyes narrowed at Sam and Mike, and the idiots cringed back a little.

“What _about_ the song?” Puck asked through gritted teeth.

“We know you wrote it,” Kurt said flatly.

The glare Puck sent his “best friends” got amped up to full volume. “You _told_?!”

“We were coerced!” Sam choked out as he and Mike tried to move behind Blaine.

“Leave them alone,” Santana growled. “The question _you_ need to be answering is why the hell you let Finnocence pass off the song as his.”

“He helped write it,” Puck answered bluntly.

The two morons seemed more willing to argue since they were using the ex-Warbler as a shield. Sam gave him a pointed look from over Blaine’s head. “He wrote a grand total of _one_ line.”

“It made up half the chorus,” Puck pointed out in Finn’s defense.

“Because it was _repeated over and over_!” Sam retorted.

 “You just threw it in there at the last minute so you could have the excuse to let him pass it off as his own without him lying _completely_ ,” Mike said.

“Which brings us to: Why in the hell did you let Finn do all that shit if you wanted Berry all along?” Santana demanded, poking a claw into his chest.

He smacked her hand away and glared at her.

“Why did you give him the brilliant idea to take Berry out on a date?” she continued relentlessly. “Why did you strong-arm the other guys into fucking _serenading_ them? And why in the _ever-fucking hell_ did you let Finn use _your_ song?”

Puck sighed. “I was high.”

Santana threw her hands up in the air, muttering in Spanish, as Kurt pinched the bridge of his nose and Blaine covered his mouth with a hand to hide his smile. Brittany frowned at him disappointedly while Sam and Mike gave him these self-righteous, _we-told-you-doing-weed-may-take-the-edge-off-but-it’s-gonna-bite-you-in-the-ass-later_ looks. He already felt shitty enough that he’d singlehandedly gotten Berry and Hudson back together as soon as they fucking kissed on stage. He didn’t need to have these idiots make him relive it all over again.

Puck turned and headed back down. “All right, if you’re all done here—”

“Oh, _no_ , we’re not!”

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Satan who’d said that and then grabbed Puck by the tip of his ear to haul him back toward the group.

“We’re not gonna let you mess up Operation Puckleberry,” Brittany said, releasing his ear once he stepped back up onto the landing.

“I still think it should be called Operation Jewish Thunder,” Sam added.

“Trouty Mouth, don’t make me feed you to a grizzly bear,” Santana hissed.

“What the hell do you want me to do about it?” Puck demanded, ignoring the two and addressing everyone else.

Brittany set one hand on Puck’s shoulder. “We’re gonna take Operation Puckleberry—”

“Operation Jewish Thunder!” Sam insisted.

“Maybe _Operation Jewish Blitzkrieg_ sounds more badass for Puck,” Kurt said sarcastically.

Sam frowned. “I don’t know about that whole Jewish-German combination especially since the whole blitzkrieg-thing started out in the war.”

“Is that offensive to German Jews?” Mike asked curiously.

“Or is it Jewish Germans?” Sam wondered.

“You know, Operation Jewish Blitzkrieg actually makes sense since ‘blitzkrieg’ means lightning war, and if we’re gonna try to get Puck with Rachel, we’d need to do it fast—before she heads off to New York and Broadway,” Blaine said contemplatively.

“True, dude,” Sam agreed. “But I still like Jewish Thunder better. It’s like—”

“Whatever the hell the name is!” Puck finally snapped. “It’s not gonna work! Berry is with Finn, and no matter what I do, it’s not gonna change her mind because she’s batshit crazy about Broadway and the crazy spilled out to latch onto Finn too!”

“Exactly!” Kurt shot back, gesturing wildly. “She wants it _too much_! Broadway, yes, sure, you need the Rachel Berry Drive and Ambition package, but for romance? No, no, no. You cannot approach love like it’s a goal to be attained.”

“Well, the goal’s been attained,” Puck said dryly.

“Thanks to yours truly, _cabron_ ,” Satan muttered, smacking him upside the head for emphasis.

“Not helping,” Kurt said.

Brittany gave Puck a little shake. “This is why we’re taking Operation Puckleberry—”

“Operation Jewish Thunder.”

“Operation Jewish Blitzkrieg.”

Brittany sighed and appealed to both Sam and Blaine’s renaming: “— _Operation Thundering Blitzkrieg of Jewish Puckleberry_ to the next level.”

Puck used a knuckle to knead his temple. “And how the hell are you gonna do that?”

The thought of either killing Finn or putting him in a coma sprang to mind, but then he thought better of it. It’d only give Rachel an excuse to sit at his deathbed and forever bemoan the loss of the love of her—oh, _hell_.

He legit needed to tell Berry to stop making her English notes so damn smart. His arsenal of smart words were starting to outnumber his profanities— _see_?! Damn it.

“Instead of you risking incarceration on twelve different counts, we decided that you now have the option of including the six of us in your plots to torture-but-subsequently-help the rest of the gleeks,” Kurt announced.

“Yeah, just give us the word, and we’ll kidnap whomever you think should be kidnapped or whatever,” Blaine agreed.

That would make his life a little easier, for sure. And considering his recent dry spell about how to knock sense into Mercedes before sectionals without _actually_ knocking her out, he was gonna need all the help he could get.

“Just you six?” Puck clarified.

“Since we were already your victims,” Sam said.

“And I’m not a complete idiot,” Mike added. “Knew what you were doing ever since Kurt.”

Brittany raised a hand cheerily. “I came up with the idea in the first place.”

Puck looked at Blaine. “And what’s your excuse?”

“I saw you kidnap Quinn, and I overheard Kurt talking about it with Brittany,” Blaine replied.

“That means you’re not on my list then?” Puck asked.

“It only counts for, like, the people who’ve been in glee for over a year,” Brittany explained.

Puck turned to Blaine. “So you and that Rory kid don’t count? Thank God.”

Blaine gave him a dry look. “ _Thanks._ I feel so welcomed right now.”

“So what’s the plan, Commander?” Sam asked, rubbing his hands eagerly. “We gonna steal something?”

“Oh! Are we gonna steal Mercedes’s voice like in _The Little Mermaid_? Because I totally have scuba gear you can borrow for when you go down into the ocean floor to talk to Ursula—oh, no, wait, she’s dead—Ursula’s _substitute_ then.”

Puck stared at her in disbelief. Santana was still standing next to her girlfriend supportively, but her eyes were rolled up toward the ceiling and he could read her lips well enough to know she was muttering in Spanish some more.

Speaking of witch...

“Satan, why are you even helping me anyway?”

She dragged he eyes downward to give him a withering stare. “Berry’s my girl...sort of. Almost. Well, she’s on the waiting list. Whatever. She backed me up when that idiot tried to rip me a new one, so it’s my job to make sure Berry won’t have to lose her virginity to a limp noodle.”

How defending her against lesbian attacks could be repayable by judging who was best to pop the fabled Berry Cherry, Puck didn’t know, but he couldn’t complain either. He’d rather have Santana on his side than against him.

“So what’s the plan, Puck?” Blaine asked. “Who’s your next target?”

Puck sighed. He was gonna have to throw his tentative plan out the window. He couldn’t risk half of the glee club getting thrown in jail right before sectionals. They’d be screwed, and if Rachel would find herself physically incapable of killing him, she could still sic Zises on him.

He ran his hand through his ‘hawk, and an idea started forming in his mind. There would be an obscene amount of screaming, but he’d just bring along some Excedrin or something. He’d give them a simple plan to follow, but he wasn’t gonna tell them the whole thing.

He was a fucking genius, but he was a good showman too.

**~oOo~**

“I _still_ don’t understand why we’re doing this,” Santana huffed, twisting on the couch so that her legs dangled off the arm and her head was on Brittany’s lap. “Parties involve booze and dancing with a side of making out and-or sex. This is not a party.”

“Well, we can’t all be as depraved as you and Puck, Santana,” Kurt sighed, replacing the tray of pizza rolls with a fresh batch straight out of the microwave.

“Hey!” Puck protested. “I’m not as depraved anymore, Hummel! Fuck you!”

“The depravity, may it be stale and hidden, still lingers, Puckerman,” Kurt huffed, slumping into the armchair.

Fine. If the moron said he was depraved, he’d be depraved.

“You know what lingers, Hummel?” Puck asked, advancing toward the armchair. “You know what smell just _permeates_ the damn walls until you can’t walk into the room without the memories all rushing back?”

“Your noxious farts,” Kurt said disdainfully.

 _“Sex,”_ Puck hissed right in Kurt’s ear.

Santana chuckled. _“‘Cause I may be bad, but I’m perfectly good at it. Sex in the air, I don’t care, I love the smell of it...”_

Kurt flushed, his eyes darting over to Blaine for a millisecond. Puck flinched and immediately backed off with a grimace.

“All right then!” Rachel chirped, jumping up and ushered Puck back toward the couch next to Sam and Rory. “Let’s all just sit back, relax, keep the conversation PG, and avoid getting all hot and bothered, all right?”

“Getting hot and bothered is the best stress relief, Berry,” Santana pointed out, leering up at Rachel from where she was perfectly positioned to get a peek under that damn prairie dress.

But instead of blushing and getting super flustered like Puck expected her to, she turned, set her hands on her hips, and scowled down at Santana.

“Well, because we’re not going to engage in the glee club’s first _orgy_ , Santana, we will not be employing sex to relax. Since we’re not going to simulate sex onstage either—”

“Again,” Kurt grumbled.

“—there doesn’t seem to be any need to venture any further into this topic,” she finished with a baleful look at Kurt.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up! Again?! What does this _again_ nonsense mean?” Sam demanded.

Apparently Blaine was feeling a little left out too. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”

“You’re the Warbler turncoat. You abandoned your pips, so excuse us if you’re out of the loop. Oh, and ‘cause Ladyfingers was part of it too,” Santana answered, smirking. “And so was Wheels, Chinky, Marshmallow Nipples, and Chocolate Thunder.”

Blaine blinked. “I’m not entirely sure who you’re talking about anymore.”

Santana lifted her head for a second to give Blaine a disappointed look. “You’re lucky you’re adorable, traitor.”

“Artie, Tina, Finn, and Mercedes,” Brittany translated. “They were all the original gleeks, and their first performance was Sugar and Salt.”

“Salt n Pepa,” Tina corrected her with a pained grimace. Mike wrapped an arm around her comfortingly. “We did _Push It_ during a school assembly.”

“And _simulated sex_ on a _stage_?” Sam persisted, staring at Rachel in awe.

“First time I ever did something nice for Jew-Fro,” Puck mused. “Grabbed him by the ‘fro and hauled him into one of the showers. Then I threw him into a dumpster. I think he kinda got pneumonia afterwards, but it still counts as nice.”

The others gave him this funny look, and he was forced to scowl and glare down at the coffee table in front of him.

“But at a _school assembly_?” Sam would just not let this go. “What the hell possessed y’all to do it?”

“We were trying to find something that would appeal to the general student population, and we capitalized on the fact that sex sells,” Kurt explained painfully.

“Rachel even had kneepads!” Brittany added brightly.

Blaine choked and sprayed out a mouthful of soda, and Mike had to pound on his back.

“Oh, don’t gawk at me like that! I wasn’t the only one on stage. Goodness me. True, it’s completely out of the ordinary, but actresses in both film and theater have to do love scenes all the time—”

“Okay, okay, you doing those kinds of scenes with other guys is not a conversation I wanna walk in on,” Finn said, slowly descending the stairs with Artie in his arms and Quinn right behind him, carrying the wheelchair.

For once Puck agreed, and as he nodded his _hello_ to Artie, Finn gave him a small smile.

Apparently Rachel didn’t spill the beans about the 1% Kiss.

Quinn, he noticed, was giving him a look too—one he was pretty familiar with but refused to dwell too much on. She was the mother of his child. Nothing else. He liked crazy, but not _her_ brand.

Once all the gleeks were finally assembled on the couches and chairs, it got pretty...boring.

Okay, bitches. This wasn’t one of Puck’s more evil-mastermind-type plans, but fuck y’all. He was having a dry spell. And it’s not like it’s his fault that non-alcoholic parties—or “get-togethers”—suck.

So if _he_ was bored, it goes without saying that Santana was on edge. He was kind of thankful—though he’ll admit he had a man-crush on Michael Fassbender before ever saying this out loud—that Berry and Santana had come to this weird friendship where they don’t take each other at face value because they have some pretty fucked-up social skills sometimes. So Santana was spewing out insults like nothing between them had changed, while Berry just let it all go as if she could hear some second, underlying, less-hostile meaning in Satan’s words.

So while his two girls—shut the hell up, Satan was like one of his boys because she was, like, dead-set on keeping Finn from de-virginizing Berry—were bickering, he got up to grab a soda from Kurt’s mini-fridge and Mike followed him.

“Dude.”

“Chang, would you fucking _pay attention_ to the conversation?” Puck hissed, pulling out a Coke and tossing another to his friend. “It was y’all’s idea to barge into this. You can’t manipulate something you’re not focusing on.”

Because that was the job he gave them: make the rest of the gleeks talk about Mercedes.

“Puck, chill out. The others got it handled. Santana’s just bored, and she’ll steer it in the right direction as soon as she’s done trying to make Finn’s head explode.”

“So what do you want?” Puck growled, glaring at the Asian.

Mike didn’t seem put off by Puck’s hostility. “Why are you really doing this?”

He really should’ve done this ninja-style. Having no one know exactly what he was doing would’ve saved him from answering these goddamned questions all the time.

So instead of answering, he just shrugged.

“Come on, man, we’ve known each other since junior high. This isn’t you being your typical shit-disturbing self. You’ve, like, singlehandedly brought the gleeks out of bitch-mode and back into team-mode.” Then he seemed to think for a second before adding, “Except for Mercedes, but I guess that falls under the whole ‘taking them out of bitch-mode’ part. But even then, dude, I knew you had a thing for Rach, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

Puck rolled his eyes. “So if you think you know why I’m doing this, why the fuck are you asking me?”

“Because I wanna hear you say it, dumbass. If an Asian F is an A-minus, you can pretty much gauge that I’m not _that_ much of an idiot,” Mike hissed, punching Puck in the arm. “I have my guesses and I’m ninety-six percent sure it’s all for Rachel, but I wanna hear you say it. You’re not doing this just to make Brittany happy.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“No, _you’re_ an idiot. For coming up with this plan.”

“What are you talking about, bitch? You don’t even know the whole plan,” Puck shot back darkly.

“You’re the fucking idiot,” Mike chuckled. “A-minus, remember? You’re gonna roast Mercedes.”

Puck frowned at his friend. “Look, I know y’all Asians like eating dogs and cats, and Blaine’s Filipino ancestors were, like, cannibals, but we’re not—”

“No,” Mike sighed, rolling his eyes. “I mean like a _funny_ roast. Like…that one thing where they held a party for Charlie Sheen and basically just ragged on him the whole time.”

Puck blinked. “Well…not really. We’re not making fun of her.”

“Whatever, dude. Everyone’s gonna start bitching about her soon, and you’ve got your hand on your phone. You’re gonna pretend to butt-dial ‘Cedes so she can hear what everyone’s saying.”

Puck immediately transferred his phone to his other hand—away from Mike’s reach. “No, I’m not.”

Mike smirked. “Dude. Junior high. I know you. You’re a fucking genius.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, turd,” Puck said nonchalantly—shit, yeah, he used “nonchalantly.” What of it? “That’s a stupid plan. That’s just gonna end up with Mercedes busting in here and shrieking at banshee-levels about how we’re all ungrateful, hateful sons of bitches and all that shit.”

Mike shot him a knowing look that Puck wanted to just _rip off with his fingernails_. “Just like how kidnapping Stevie and Stacy was a stupid plan.”

Did fucking _everyone_ know about that shit now?! Jesus!

“Who told?” Puck growled.

“Sam,” Mike answered, shrugging. “Dude, it’s no big deal. I think it’s cool, but, like, _why_?”

For a solid five seconds, Mike gave him that creepy Asian stare. (It wasn’t an actual trademark stare. It was just a typical stare, only it was more menacing because of the chinky eyes.)

And then Puck remembered why Mike was one of his boys:

Mike sighed, blinked, and then turned to head back toward the gleeks.

Dude didn’t _nag_. He’d ask the question once, and if you didn’t answer him, then he’d wait for it. Fucking Asian awesomeness. Puck’s plan for this guy was gonna be nineteen thousand levels of fucking _phenomenal_.

“Chang.”

Asian turned and raised an eyebrow.

Puck just gave him this look, and then Mike smirked.

“And you called me a fuck-up when I told you I was in love with Tina,” Mike chortled. “At least Tina was single, and I never had to resort to _this_ to get her attention.”

“I hate you, motherfucker.” _Don’t let me fuck this up, dude._

“I hate you too, bitch.” _I got your back, man._

“Well, you don’t have to keep putting everyone down!” Finn yelled. “You keep bragging about how you’re a goddess under and above the sheets, but one of these days, that’ll either backfire on you or you’ll just end up alone and bitter because you keep insulting anyone who ever tries to give a crap about you!”

What the hell did they just walk in on?

A couple of mouths dropped, and both Puck and Mike stopped at the edge of the circle of couches and chairs the gleeks were all assembled on. Even Santana looked kinda shocked from Finn’s little outburst. Puck himself was actually kind of impressed. Rachel, of course, was staring up at Finn with wide, adoring eyes—getting a full blast of those ass-rays.

The shock faded from Santana’s face as she narrowed her eyes at Finn. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re Saint Hudson, okay? You can pretend that you’re just some awesome team leader who cares about everyone, but the truth is that you’re _just_ as selfish as me. Contrary to popular belief that you’re a complete fucking _idiot_ , you’re a _womanizer_.”

_“What?!”_

“Three names, numbnuts. I’m sure you’re familiar with them all: Fabray, Berry, and _me_.”

“How the hell is that me being a womanizer?!” Finn demanded. “I look like _Jesus_ compared to Puck!”

Puck shrugged. Shit was true. Well, he wouldn’t go as far as to compare Finn to Jesus because his Holy Homeboy actually had more than two brain cells to rub together, but whatever. Puck was a pretty fucked-up dude.

“Don’t insult my Boy Jesus by even putting yourself in the same sentence as Him, _tonto_!” Santana screeched. “You’re a little bitch, but you think you’re entitled to it because you think you’re the golden boy of Lima, Ohio! Newsflash, _culero_ , you’re _not_! You cheated on Quinn, dumped Rachel to find your inner rockstar—A.K.A. try get a threesome out of me and Brits—then got back together with her only to dump her for the most hypocritical bullshit I’ve ever heard because you totally got in my pants and still told her you were a virgin, then you stole Quinn from Sam only to dump her ass for Rachel—AGAIN! Damn, you are so much more fucked up than Puckerman!”

“I never cheated on _anyone_!” Finn roared furiously.

Puck was about to call bullshit because Finn _did_ kiss Rachel while he was still dating Quinn, but he didn’t wanna get into another fistfight.

“Bullshit, _pinche idiota_!” Apparently, he didn’t have to do that. Santana had it covered. “You _totally_ cheated on Fabray and Berry! Emotionally, physically, what-the-fuck- _ever_! You’re a little bitch, Hudson.”

“You should be the _last_ person to tell me that shit, Lopez! You’re a slut, and you even admitted it yourself!”

“Yeah, I _am_ slut, motherfucker! But at least _I_ don’t walk around like I’ve got a damn halo and wings! I know who I am! You still need to figure out who _you_ are!”

“ALL RIGHT! _ENOUGH_ , MOTHERFUCKERS!”

Everyone jumped at Puck’s roar, and even Santana and Finn were shocked into submission. Yeah, bitches, he had _power_.

“Noah is right,” Rachel said quietly, tugging Finn back down onto the couch. “Tonight was supposed to be to relax before sectionals, and now we’re just arguing. It’s the stress.”

“Let’s just break out the weed since it’s Puck’s go-to relaxation method,” Kurt mumbled, taking a sip from his water bottle.

Puck glared at Hummel. “Shut up, dude. Can we all just chill the fuck out now? Please? Jesus Christ, I get enough of y’all yelling at each other during glee. I don’t need to hear this shit outside of school too. Damn.”

Maybe this was just a really bad idea.

Puck crossed the room, grabbed the tissue box off the wall table, and handed the whole thing to Brittany, who sniffled, grabbed a tissue, and blew into it.

“Brit-Brit, I’m sorry,” Santana said, sitting down and wrapping an arm around her girlfriend. “Hudson’s just seven levels of stupid, and I had to tell him that, right? You wouldn’t want our friends to walk around not knowing that they’re idiots and need fixing right? If you had something in your teeth, you’d want me to tell you, right?”

Brittany nodded and sniffled some more. “Yeah.”

“So I had to tell Finn that he’s not ready to be in a relationship with anything that has more emotions than a concrete block, you get me?”

“Yeah,” Brittany said thickly and then honked into the tissue.

Finn just rolled his eyes and stalked out of the basement and back up into the main level of the house. Berry, Puck noticed with a little satisfaction, pursed her lips and hesitated for a good eleven seconds before getting up and going after Finn.

“Imagine what Mercedes would’ve done if she saw that,” Sam chuckled good-naturedly. Puck sighed in relief.

Fucking _finally_. He hit _call_ without even having to look at his phone.

“She would’ve made me get popcorn,” Kurt said fondly, “and then shrieked with laughter when Santana compared Finn to a block.”

“I miss her,” Tina sighed.

“Too bad girl’s gone absolutely batshit crazy,” Artie said.

“I don’t get it,” Mike muttered. “One second everything was good, and next thing you know—”

“It was clash of the titans,” Puck finished.

“I think it was Shane,” Tina said. “I overheard them talking about how rivals shouldn’t be hugging or something. It was so stupid.”

“Don’t blame Shane,” Blaine said. “It’s understandable he’d say that ‘cause he’s a guy. Rivalry is different between males and females.”

“Hardly,” Santana scoffed. “The guys become dicks, and the girls get catty. And it’s not like Berry and Aretha were BFF’s before anyway.”

“Regardless,” Artie said. “Mercedes was being a bitch. I don’t know what she was tripping on, but that girl’s head soared right out of the atmosphere.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what she was complaining about,” Quinn said. “After Rachel, she got the most solos out of the girls.”

“She’s _Beyonce_ , remember?” Santana said. “She’s gotta either be in the spotlight or on a pedestal.”

Quinn scowled. “You know, she’s actually worse than RuPaul. I don’t even think Treasure Trail would stoop that low just to get attention.”

“And you’re just the resident expert on attention-seeking, aren’t you?” Puck said snidely.

If Quinn didn’t have her good-girl Christian scruples, she would’ve straight-up flicked him off. Instead, she ignored him and went, “Remember when Zises became her manager or something and how _Berry_ was the one who catered to all her demands?”

“Yo, in retrospect, I like ‘Cedes,” Santana said as Brittany took her turn lying on Santana’s lap. “She’s got a cool personality, but her attitude is a pain in the ass. Berry has her shitty quirks, but, eh. I can tolerate that better than any diva tantrum.”

“ _Seriously_ ,” Blaine groaned. “That was _legit_ diva tantrum. She totally got to share the spotlight for _Maria_ —this _epic_ historical character—but she turned it down!”

“Don’t underestimate the power of diva pride, sweetie,” Kurt said, rubbing Blaine’s back. “It’s a force to be reckoned with.”

“That girl needs to be taken down a few pegs,” Sam muttered through a mouthful of chips. “I’m not biased or racist, but Rachel was, like, _conceived_ to be Maria. Mercedes doesn’t fit the role. Not to mention she has no chemistry with Blaine.”

“Dude, your opinions worry me. Why _exactly_ did you break up with Mercedes again? Were you playing in the closet too much?” Puck asked, quickly receiving a water bottle to the face.

“You _know_ how much my mom likes _West Side Story_ , jackass. Shut up,” Sam pouted.

“Just ‘cause your mom likes it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to tune that shit out, _Samantha_!” Santana cackled.

“NO! YOU DIDN’T EVEN DEFEND ME! YOU JUST LET YOUR NEW LITTLE BEST FRIEND CALL ME A SLUT!”

Oh, fuck.

Puck jumped to his feet, left his phone on the couch next to Sam, and jogged up the basement stairs, completely ignoring the gleeks.

Berry and Finn were facing off in the living room, right in front of the TV. Berry was on the verge of tears, and the vein on Hudson’s Frankenstein-like forehead was about to explode.

“The hell is going on up here?”

“Stay outta this Puck! You interfere in our lives enough!” Finn barked angrily.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Hudson. Calm your tits. No need to yell,” Puck said, backing away.

“No! You know what?! I _do_ need to yell! You’re always screwing _me_ over! You fucked up my relationships with Quinn and Rachel!”

“Finn! Don’t drag him into—”

“I don’t need to drag him anywhere! He’s always inserting himself all over the damn place!” Finn cried.

“Dude, seriously,” Puck said, trying to keep his tone calm. “Can we not do this right now? It’s all in the past. We’ve moved on. Can’t keep dwelling on this shit.”

“Easy for you to say since it’s _your fault_ in the first place!”

And then something snapped.

“Okay, yeah, maybe it is!” Puck shot back. “But at least _I_ know what the fuck I did wrong! _Rachel_ knows what the fuck she did wrong! Santana, Sam, all those other guys know what they did wrong, but your head is shoved so far up your ass that you can’t see shit!”

“Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m drowning in all the shit you put me through!”

“ _Christ_ , Finnessa! I didn’t think you’d actually live up to the name! Stop being so fucking _dramatic_! That was a year ago! You got back together with Quinn, but then you decided to throw it to hell since it took you damn near forever to realize she’s batshit crazy! And now you’re back with Rach in spite of all the shit you’ve been through! Move the fuck on! You’ve got this damn complex now where you can never be satisfied with what you have!”

“Can you blame me for developing a complex?! You keep stealing everything from me!”

Puck laughed humorlessly. “ _That_ is where you’re so wrong. Yeah, Quinn cheated with me, but I never stole Rachel from you. I was with her first.”

“What?! No, you—”

“Finn, Noah’s right. We were together sophomore year, remember?” Rachel said softly.

If Finn could look any more pissed, he’d implode. “That doesn’t count! That was five days! That whole relationship was a hoax!”

“He gave up football for me. He sang a song for me. He got a slushie in the face, Finn,” Rachel fought back, a little angry now. “He was a good boyfriend.”

Something stirred and hummed in Puck’s stomach. He blamed it on the weird-ass cheesy scrambled eggs Bekah made that morning.

“So now you’re gonna side with him again?! I don’t get it, Rach, you _chose me_! Why do you keep going back to him over and over?!”

“Finn, I’m not—he’s my _friend_ , and he’s _yours_ too! We dated for a brief amount of time, and it was nice while it lasted. But I’m with you _now_! Stop dwelling in the past and being completely unreason—”

“BITCHES! OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR RIGHT NOW BEFORE I CRASH MY CAR THROUGH THIS DAMN HOUSE!”

Oh, for God’s sake.

Since Finn didn’t seem in any way inclined to move from where he was glaring at Rachel, Puck crossed the living room to open the door. He barely turned the lock before the damn thing _exploded_ open, making him stagger back and almost trip over Rachel.

“YOU!” Mercedes shrieked, waving her phone at Puck’s face. “YOU BUTT-DIALED ME AND YOU KNOW WHAT I HEARD, MOTHERFUCKAH?! _E’RYTHIN’!_ Y’ALL THINK YOU CAN JUST BITCH ABOUT ME BEHIND MY BACK?! FRIENDS, MY HOT BLACK ASS! Y’ALL ARE BACKSTABBIN’ BITCHES! LUCKY I WAS IN THE NEIGHBO’HOOD! LOPEZ! HUMMEL! WARBLER! EVANS! GET OUT HERE! I KNOW YOU ALL DOWN THERE, HATIN’ ON ME!”

“PUCK! HELP!” Kurt shrieked on a note Puck didn’t think was humanly possible.

And then he heard it. More shrieking.

He broke away from Berry’s steadying grip on his arm and dashed back down the basement stairs with Berry, Hudson, and Jones right behind him. He got to the second-to-bottom step and nearly had a damn heart attack when a vase legit _grazed the side of his face_ before smashing into the wall behind him.

THIS IS ALL GOING TO SHIT!

_“¡VETE AL CARAJO!”_

“WHORE OF BABYLON!”

Blaine, Mike, Rory, and Sam were almost _sitting_ on Santana while Tina, Brittany, and Kurt had practically lifted Quinn off the ground. Artie had wheeled right between the two shrieking girls holding a pillow in either hand like they would work as barriers.

“SEE?! Y’ALL CAN’T EVEN—”

 _Big mistake, ‘Cedes,_ Puck thought with a grimace.

Santana turned and redirected her gaze. “DON’T YOU START WITH ME, _PAYASA_! YOU GAVE UP THE RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE WITH OUR HOT ASSES THE MOMENT YOU DECIDED YOU WANTED TO BE A SOLO ACT!”

“DON’T ACT LIKE YOU’RE HAPPY IN THIS FOOL CLUB! NIGGA PLEASE! YOU WANT THE SPOTLIGHT AS MUCH AS I DO! YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS I GOT OUT FIRST!”

“JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN FOOL YOURSELF DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN FOOL THE REST OF US, JONES!” Quinn threw in. “YOU _LOVE_ GLEE! YOU JUST THREW A TANTRUM BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T GETTING ENOUGH ATTENTION, AND THEN WHEN YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO GROW UP, YOUR PRIDE GOT IN THE WAY! NOW YOU’RE STUCK IN SHELBY’S STUPID KNOCKOFF CLUB WITH AN AIRHEAD WHO SINGS LIKE A DYING SQUIRREL!”

“QUINN! CALM DOWN!” Kurt shrieked.

“SANTANA, _PLEASE_ STOP ELBOWING ME IN THE FACE, DAMN IT!” Rory bellowed, his words getting muddled in his accent.

Something heavy and warm collided against Puck’s back, but he widened his stance to keep Mercedes from throwing herself into the fray.

“Y’ALL BITCHES PRETENDIN’ TO TEAM UP TO TRY AND GEMME TO COME BACK, BUT I KNOW WHAT’S GON’ HAPPEN! I COME BACK, AND NEXT DAY, Y’ALL BE BITCHIN’, CHEATIN’, AND HOGGIN’ _ALL THE DAMN SOLOS_!”

And because the sheer force of sound coming from behind him was like a blow to the head, Puck was practically _blitzed_ as Mercedes shoved her way past him. He spun with the force, but he managed to catch Berry around the waist before the damn gremlin could launch herself at Mercedes’s back.

“I AM _NOT_ HOGGING ALL THE SOLOS! YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!” Berry shrieked.

There goes Puck’s right ear.

“THE HELL, DUMBASS?! YOU DOMINATED REGIONALS LAST YEAR! YOU SANG THE BALLAD _AND_ SUNG LEAD ON THE SONG _WE_ WROTE!” Mercedes screeched. Finn lunged forward and grabbed her before she took another step closer or made another move toward the other vase.

“ _WE_?!” Santana screamed incredulously, almost kicking her stiletto heel into Blaine’s crotch. “SAM, PUCK, ARTIE, AND _I_ WROTE ‘LOSER LIKE ME,’ BITCH! DON’T EVEN _PRETEND_ THAT YOU CONTRIBUTED! EVEN FUCKING _MIKE_ PUT IN TWO LINES! YOU JUST SAT THERE, WHINING ABOUT WHY RACHEL GOT _ANOTHER_ SOLO EVEN THOUGH SHE _WROTE_ THE GODDAMN SONG!”

“AND RACHEL _DESERVES_ TO HAVE SOLOS BECAUSE SHE SPENDS NINETY-EIGHT PERCENT OF HER _LIFE_ ON STUFF LIKE THIS! SHE DANCES AND SINGS AND DOES WHATEVER THE HELL BROADWAY STARS-IN-TRAINING DO! YOU JUST COME UP WITH LAME OUTFITS, OBSESS ABOUT TATOR TOTS, AND WHINE ABOUT FREAKING _EVERYTHING_!” Quinn yelled, not even realizing that she was backing up Berry.

“AND THEN YOU ABANDON US AND EXPECT US TO RESPECT YOUR DECISION?! NO!” Berry hollered, trying to fucking climb over Puck. “YOU’RE SELFISH, PRIDEFUL, AND DELUDED ENOUGH TO THINK YOU’RE _ENTITLED_!”

Mercedes suddenly let out this unholy roar and drove Finn back a couple of feet toward Puck and Rachel, but Finn managed to drag Mercedes away while Puck heaved Rachel onto his shoulder and pulled her further away from the mess. Chick was _so damn squirrely_.

“YOU MADE A COMMITMENT TO _US_ , _IDIOTA_! AND THEN YOU RENEGED LIKE A LITTLE BABY BRAT WHO DIDN’T GET THE TOY SHE WANTED!” Santana yelled, successfully catching Sam in the throat. He staggered back, and she managed to surge forward about two feet before Rory and Blaine practically _jumped_ on her back.

“HUDSON, LET ME GO OR IMMA SHOVE MY SHOE SO FAR DOWN YO THROAT! I NEED TO RIP OUT THAT BITCH’S EYES!”

“EVERYONE, FOR GOD’S SAKE, CALM DOWN!” Kurt screamed.

“NO!” Mercedes barked. “NOT UNTIL I SMACK SOME DAMN SENSE INTO _EL DIABLO_ , THE NAZI, AND THE JEWISH MONKEY!”

“OH, HELL YES, IMMA BE YOUR OWN PERSONAL WARDEN OF HELL AS SOON AS I SHOVE MY PITCHFORK STRAIGHT THROUGH YOUR SHRIVELED OVARIES!”

“I WILL THROW YOU INTO A DAMN GAS CHAMBER, YOU DEGENERATE BITCH! IS THAT NAZI ENOUGH FOR YOU NOW?!”

“ _MONKEY_?! WHAT?! _YOU’RE_ THE ONE WITH THE DISPOSITION OF A BABOON, AND YOU _CERTAINLY_ HAVEN’T EVOLVED PAST THAT STAGE AND INTO THE HUMAN THRESHOLD YET!”

Puck kinda wished he hadn’t told Kurt to get Burt to take Carol out on a date tonight. Having parental units would definitely have helped in their current situation.

“Should we slap them?!” Tina demanded.

“So they can attack _us_ too?!” Sam choked out. “ _You_ can do it, but you’re on your own!”

“I HATE Y’ALL! I HATE ALL O’ Y’ALL!” Mercedes screeched.

“HORSEHIT! YOU LOVE US OTHERWISE YOU WOULDN’T GIVE TWO FLYING FUCKS WHAT THE HELL WE SAID ABOUT YOU!” Santana yelled and then added, “OH, NO, WAIT! OF _COURSE_ YOU CARE WHAT WE THINK—YOU CARE WHAT A FUCKING _FROG_ THINKS ABOUT YOU!”

Mercedes screamed in frustration again. “I _HATE_ Y’ALL! ALWAYS BITCHIN’ ABOUT RACHEL, BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THOSE GODDAMN SOLOS, E’RYONE’S ALWAYS BOWING DOWN TO HER!”

Even though she was being restrained, Santana managed to throw her hands up in the air. “HOLY SHIT, BITCH, YOU’RE _STILL_ NOT GETTING IT?! BERRY IRRITATES THE SHIT OUT OF FUCKING EVERYONE, BUT—”

“BUT NOTHIN’ GODDAMNIT! SHE’S SCHUE’S DAMN FAVORITE JUST ‘CAUSE SHE CAN LIVE OUT HIS DREAM ON BROADWAY!”

If it was possible, Berry actually managed to almost climb onto Puck’s shoulders, using his rib cage as some sort of ladder. “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?! MR. SCHUE _HATES_ ME! HE’S ALWAYS TRYING TO PUSH ME OUT AND SILENCE ME EVEN THOUGH I DO WHAT’S BEST FOR THE CLUB _AND_ I’M ESSENTIALLY THE RESIDENT EXPERT ON BROADWAY AND SHOW CHOIR!” 

“BULLSHIT!” Mercedes bellowed at a decibel no one thought was possible. The walls may or may not have shaken. “YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT HIM _ALL THE DAMN TIME_ , BUT IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY REALIZED, _PRINCESS_ , HE _STILL_ GIVES YOU ALL THE DAMN SOLOS, AND IT’S NOT UNTIL WE ALL IN A UPROAR THAT HE GIVES SOMEONE ELSE A CHANCE AND YOU POUT IN A CORNER!”

“ALL RIGHT! THAT’S IT!” Berry shrieked. “NOAH, PUT ME DOWN!”

“No.”

“I’m not going to—”

“Yes, you will.”

“I have the self-control to—”

“Under normal circumstances sure.”

“Even under these—”

“No, you don’t.”

“NOAH—”

“Truce. I hold onto the back of your dress, and you do not get within five feet of Jones.”

“That’s ridicu—”

“No, _that_ is all I’m offering.”

“FINE!”

He set her down on the floor but kept a firm grip on the back of her dress, his other arm poised to wrap around her waist and haul her back up onto his shoulder.

Meanwhile, Quinn had successfully calmed down for Tina, Brittany, and Kurt to let her go. Santana, on the other hand, wasn’t faring as well.

“Trouty Mouth, I am _fine_! Let me go!”

“You think we’re stupid?” Mike asked.

Sam wrapped his arm more securely around her waist. “I may have a big mouth, but it’s not big enough for me to vomit my brain out, Santana.”

She sighed and went limp in their holds. “Can you let me go _now_?”

Only Rory fell for it. Blaine, Sam, and Mike tackled Santana onto the couch when she lunged for Mercedes again.

“LEMME AT HER! IMMA RIP HER FUCKING _GALLBLADDER_ OUT HER NOSE!”

“GO AHEAD AND TRY IT, WHORE!”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT _UP_!” Berry howled, straining the seams of her dress as she tried to move forward. “I’ve _had_ it! You are a selfish girl who complains to no end! You barely ever practice, and though that says a _lot_ about your talent, it’s not enough! I work _so_ hard for this, Mercedes! I want this _so_ much, but you’re just using this as your shot to fame to be like Beyonce! You have your fashion, you have your writing, you have your personality, but I don’t have anything _else_! I _need_ this, and okay, it made me selfish, but for _God’s sake_ , stop being so damned self-centered all the time! We’re a _team_ , and up until that godforsaken audition, we were _friends_! You keep bragging about your confidence, but in all honesty, you’re _not_! You’re confident in your beauty up until you find some insignificant flaw, and you milk it and play the victim card for as long as you can! And, fine, all right. But you know what you’ve done? You’ve alienated yourself from the friends who stuck with you through all the stupid things we’ve been through. If we were an actual family, we’d be just beyond dysfunctional and incestuous, but at least we’re all here for each other.”

“You wanted to make your senior year worthwhile,” Puck said, making everyone turn to look at him, “and nationals was gonna be all our tickets to making a worthwhile senior year. So what are you gonna do? Leave and keep bitching about how life hates you and chill with Sugar Motta, or are you gonna shit out your pride and get your ass back in glee before sectionals?”

Mercedes looked around at everyone.

“We think you’re annoying sometimes, but notice how upset we are that you left,” Tina said. “We don’t care that we didn’t have enough people for sectionals.”

Santana sighed, her voice muffled by the couch cushions. “We care that we don’t gots our Chocolate Thunder.”

“And I would personally love to have the opportunity to share a stage with you,” Rory said shyly, waving a little from where he was sitting on Santana’s legs.

But Mercedes was _stone_. “That...has to be the most shitty-ass way to get me to come back.”

“If you think we’re gonna get on our knees and grovel, you may as well walk back out the door,” Quinn said coldly.

“Look, Aretha,” Santana said acidly. “Usually, we all contribute to the bowl of fuck-uppery, but this time, it’s all on you.”

“Mercedes, you’re my girl,” Artie said earnestly, rolling up to where Finn was wrapped around Mercedes to keep her from moving, “but we know it’s not just about the solos.”

“You complain about confidence, but in actuality, it’s your _pride_ ,” Tina said sadly. “There were times when it actually _was_ confidence, but most of the time it really is pride. This whole thing with Rachel and the play and Maria? All that was essentially your fault.”

“And y’all think _blaming me_ is gonna get me to come back?! More jacked-up than I thought!”

“Would you calm your tits, _puta_?!” Santana barked. “Goddamn! In one ear, out the other!”

“Can you _blame_ me?!” Mercedes demanded. “I have taken a backseat to this Broadway Oompa-Loompa for _years_!”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “Then for God’s sake, _fight her for it_! Nothing wrong with a healthy rivalry. Don’t _demand_ solos, just get up and _do it_.”

“He’s right,” Berry said. “And instead of complaining about how I always get everything, how about you simply ask Mr. Schue if you could have a try at the song? He will _never_ turn you down.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “That way you can break out the big guns and wow us into giving you the solo.”

“Anyone can come up and try their hand at a song, and then we can all take a vote,” Mike said.

That seemed to convince Jones since she sighed and relaxed in Finn’s grip, prompting him to finally unwrap himself from around her.

“I’m not using this as a shot to fame. I want this almost as much as you, you know?” she said quietly.

Truthfully, anything said at a normal tone was quiet to Puck. Having two powerhouse divas screaming into your ears takes its fucking tolls, you know.

Berry bit back a smile. “Then you know that your best shot is going to be with people who can actually hold a note, right?”

Mercedes rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Lord, that girl made my left eardrum rupture! I think she’s deaf—that’s why she can’t follow Shelby’s scales to save her damn life.”

And it just sort of evened out after that. After apologizing to the cops who showed up because of the neighbor’s complaints of a localized earthquake, the gleeks sprawled out on the couches and _finally_ fucking relaxed.

**~oOo~**

“Dude, I think there are bruises on my armpit,” Sam said, slowly rotating his shoulders.

He and Puck were driving home, and Sam was cataloguing all the injuries Santana gave him.

“What were Fabray and Lopez bitching about anyway?” Puck asked, turning into his neighborhood.

“It was pretty shocking,” Sam said. “When you went after Rachel, Quinn complained about what kind of pheromones Rachel took to make you and Finn and Jesse all crazy about her all the time. Then Santana flipped. First they started throwing insults, then yelling, and it just escalated into a full-on smackdown before we separated them.”

Puck glanced at his friend, hearing the slightly bitter tone. “You okay?”

Sam shrugged. “I gave up when I realized she was a cheating bitch, but I guess it still kinda stings that she _still_ doesn’t want me even though Finn dumped her and you want nothing to do with her.”

Well...

It’s not like he really knew what to say about that.

“So, who’s the next mark?” Sam asked brightly, changing the subject.

“Forget it!” Puck said, pulling into his driveway. “I’ll do the rest of this shit myself. That was a horrible plan back there.”

“Well, it _worked_. Shelby’s back down to one member of her club.”

“Regardless, dude. That was a fucking disaster. My ears can’t take much more of that.”

“So what? You gonna go back to illegal crap?”

“I’d rather risk jail than my brain being melted. If I need help, I know who to call, but as of right now, y’all are officially off my clandestine operation membership roster.”

Sam smirked. “Aren’t Rach’s English notes _awesome_?”

“Don’t test me, Evans. You’re living in _my_ house remember?”

Puck’s phone buzzed in his pocket as he jumped out of his truck and headed for the door.

_Hi._

Puck sighed as he and Sam got inside. He didn’t respond until Sam was safely in the living room and he was on his bed.

_U ok?_

She wasn’t usually this quick at responding to texts, believing that “though promptness is always considerate during messaging, a responder must also give a margin of time so as to not seem overly-anxious.” So instead of the Flash, she was Usain Bolt. But tonight, she was Flash.

_No. I’m tired._

_Y u talkin 2 me then? Go 2 sleep_

_Not that kind of tired, Noah._

_So wat u want me 2 do?_

_Talk to me._

And so he talked to her until he fell asleep midway through a text about why Wonder Woman shouldn’t be with Superman. She should be with Batman.


	7. Wheels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to warn y'all: I took some artistic license on some facts here about college and the dates for early decision. I don't know any of that aside from my own experience at Rollins, and I hardly have the time to do in-depth research on specific dates of specific colleges, so I'm just gonna throw some shit your way and hope it doesn't sound too absurd. Don't read too much into it, don't take me seriously, and don't, for the love of God, correct me. It'll just pass over my head, and you'll have wasted your time and energy typing that technical shit out.

Puck studied the list on the topmost page of the stack of papers Pillsbury had asked him to give to Artie. He read a couple of words. None of it made sense. He looked away and sighed. He couldn’t even begin to come up with a way to help his boy. Aside from breaking up Brittana (oh, yeah, _sure_ —if he wanted his balls soaked in hydrochloric acid and hacked apart and shoved up his nose) and begging and stealing to get Artie some sort of breakthrough surgery to repair his legs, Puck was at a fucking loss.

Build him a rocket-powered wheelchair?

Holy fuck, even if he had the brains to construct that shit, he was in no way inclined to be blamed for the most epic paraplegic death in history.

Find him a girl?

Uh, no. Dude still wasn’t over Brittany, and Puck had sworn off matchmaking.

He glanced up at the plaque on the door in front of him: AV ROOM.

Artie was in the AV club. Artie directed _Run, Joey, Run_. Artie directed _Vogue_. Artie...directs.

With an evil smirk, Puck rapped on the door.

“Enter at your own risk!”

The smirk vanished and he sighed and pushed open the door with a longsuffering look. “Dude. For _real_?”

Artie grinned at him sheepishly from where he was sitting in the dark in the glow of three monitors all hooked up to one computer. He never looked any more like an evil genius. “Reflex, sorry. What up?”

“Shit for the play,” Puck answered, slapping the papers onto the desk next to a couple of Twinkie wrappers and then flopping down onto the seat next to Artie. “What is— _dude!_ What is that?!”

Artie shrugged and pressed the play button to continue the video. “Just a montage of pictures and videos I took over the past couple years in glee.”

“But you recorded some of this shit with a cell phone,” Puck said, frowning at the fucking HD-quality of Finn failing epically at an earlier rendition of a kick-ball step. “I remember ‘cause Finn almost broke your phone when he threw out his arms and whacked it outta your hands. This looks like you had a whole film crew and shit.”

“I just used a couple of programs to enhance the video quality and sharpen some stuff up. Then I—”

“Fair warning, dude, if you get any more technical, I’m gonna start tuning you out.”

“Me use computer to make picture pretty.”

Puck shot him a dry look. “Can you repeat that with fewer syllables?”

Artie grinned and clapped Puck on the back. “Oh, hey, look. It’s one of the few times Schue paired you and Rachel together during a dance routine.”

A grand total of thirteen seconds passed before either of them spoke.

“Damn. That was _palpable_.”

“You do not show this to Finn. Ever. Edit this out or something, but do not, for the love of God, ever let him see this.”

“Puck, are you—”

“No, Jesus Christ, dude. No! Been there _twice_ already. Third time’s not the charm.”

“Are you—”

“Yes, I’m sure, damn it. You’d think I wouldn’t know if Berry was cheating with me?”

_1% Kiss. 1% Kiss. 1% Kiss._

“For fuck’s sake, we did _not_ cheat. Nothing happened.”

Big, big brown eyes with little gold stars and plump, pink lips fresh off of singing a U2 cover. _Yes, it did._

Puck leveled a very, very dark glare at Artie. _“Just get rid of that video.”_

Artie was staring at him with a mixture of skepticism, amusement, and a disturbing amount of intelligence.

“All right. Chill. I’ll edit it out,” he said, opening a new window.

Puck cleared his throat. “So, uh, how’s the play coming?”

“Rachel is brilliant, of course,” Artie answered, throwing Puck a smug grin.

Little fucktard.

“How’s, uh, Warbler and Satan and Chang and whoever the fuck else is in it?”

“They’re doing really well, actually. I was kinda thrown that Santana even auditioned to begin with, and I was half-expecting a series of mild diva-fits—nothing that could rival Mercedes’s or Rachel’s, but a diva-fit nonetheless. But she’s actually pretty cool...once you get past the constant stream of Spanish insults she spews at you whenever you try and correct the scene.”

“And the turncoat Warbler?”

“If he was a girl, Rachel would have some _serious_ competition. That’s all I can say about him.”

“How ‘bout Mike?”

Artie threw up his hands in a sort of _hallelujah_ praise. “Good God, man. Mike...I have no words. You should’ve seen his audition, Puck. It was amazing. Not like clash-of-the-divas kind of amazing, but it was like—”

“How did this guy go from being tone-deaf to pretty awesome?”

_“Exactly!”_

Puck sat back with a smug smile. “He tells everyone Tina helped him, but my boy’s lying. They could never get through one lesson because he kept staring at her lips and jumping her bones.”

“So _you_ coached him?” Artie asked incredulously.

“Sam and I worked with him on and off during the summer, but thank God for patented super-fast Asian learning otherwise he would still be singing in fucking falsetto.”

Artie shook his head and laughed at Puck’s racism. “It was that bad?”

“Thought singing in his normal tone sounded bad, so he went to falsetto to see if it could sound better.”

“And did it?”

Puck gave him a look, and Artie laughed.

“Whatever you two did worked wonders. Kudos. We’re gonna have a great play this year.”

“Yeah, I figured. Beiste won’t shut up about it, and Pillsbury’s eyes can’t get any wider. Looks like _you’ve_ been doing some serious wonders too. People won’t shut up about how you’ve found your...nish?”

“Niche, dude. Niche.”

Shut up, fucktards, he still has some lessons to learn.

Puck rolled his eyes and then motioned to the screen. “Whatever. This shit is awesome. You may as well skip film school and head straight for Hollywood.”

Artie paused and gave Puck a funny look. “Uh, I don’t think so.”

Puck frowned. “Dude, you’re in the AV club. You actually made Sylvester look _good_ in the Madonna video. You gave _Run, Joey, Run_ its only redeeming quality. I thought you were set since sophomore year.”

Artie shrugged and turned back to the screen. “It’s just a hobby, Puck. It’s not a practical occupation for someone like me.”

Puck narrowed his eyes, studying his suddenly-stoic friend. “So where are you gonna go?”

“I already sent in early decision applications to Rice in Texas along with—”

“Pasta in Montana?”

Artie gave him a disbelieving look. “Brotha, I cannot believe you just went there.”

Puck’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, you were serious? I thought you were being sarcastic. What the hell is Rice?”

“It’s a college in Texas.”

“The hell you gonna major in?”

“Probably engineering or—”

Puck could see Artie armed in a hardhat, blueprints resting on his lap, rolling through a construction site. The wheel of his chair sudden caught on a wire. Screams from above! Artie looks up, squints through his glasses, just in time to see a massive steel post slicing through the air, aimed right for—

“No, no, no, dude. I don’t see you in engineering,” Puck blurted out. He was pretty sure that image wasn’t exactly what an engineer does, but Puck knew that it involved dangerous building sites. “What else is on the table?”

Artie frowned at him. “I was thinking accounting...?”

Oh, Christ. Like he didn’t already fit the goddamn role.

“Wheels, I know for a fact that you’d hate that shit.”

“Puck, I gotta be practical. I’m not like Rachel or Mercedes or Kurt or anyone like them. They’re... _exceptionally_ talented. I can do stuff, but I’m not the best at it like they are.”

Bitch done lost his mind.

But Puck was past that whole lecturing phase. He’d done it with Berry and Quinn, and he wasn’t gonna pull a third out of his hot ass.

So he shrugged. “Okay. It’s your choice.”

Artie turned back and kept clicking at whatever on the screens. Puck sighed and stood up.

“Whatever college you get to, though, keep in touch, all right?” Puck said, clapping Artie on the back.

“So you can force me to babysit the Pucklebabies? Pass. Kids like sticking their hands through my wheels, and I’d rather not have child dismemberment on my head—especially when the kid’s mom is _Rachel_. I already can’t walk. I don’t wanna add ‘deaf’ to my list of disabilities.”

Puck scowled and walked out the door, slamming it behind him as Artie laughed.

This definitely complicated things. If he already sent in the applications...

Wait. He knew that look Artie made when Puck had brought up colleges. That was the _I-know-what-I-have-to-do-but-I’m-just-gonna-do-this-anyway-‘cause-what-have-I-got-to-lose?_ kind if look. Of course Puck recognized it—he’d been making that same expression more often than enough in the past couple of months.

Turning back, he jerked open the door making Artie jump.

“Where else did you apply to?” Puck demanded with a glare.

“Rollins, Alabama, Rochester, and USC.”

Puck’s glare darkened and he gritted out, “A _film_ school, Abrams.”

Artie swallowed. “Columbia University School of the Arts...the film division...”

Puck smirked and leaned against the doorjamb. “Thought that shit wasn’t practical.”

Artie shrugged. “It was your secret lover. She filled out half the application and shoved it at me. I had to fill the rest out under duress. Then she stole the video I was working on and sent it all off.”

Puck smirked.

Yeah.

He and Berry were fucking _soul mates._

“But I know I’m not getting in. That wasn’t even one of my best videos,” Artie grumbled. “I would’ve had a better application if she hadn’t been so pushy.”

“You wouldn’t have _applied_ in the first place if she hadn’t been so pushy,” Puck said, a plan formulating in his mind. “Show me the video she sent in.”

Artie grimaced. “Are you sure? It’s really dumb. You don’t wanna see it.”

“Christ, Abrams. Play the damn video, and I’ll be the judge of whether or not it’s dumb.”

Artie sighed, and with one last pained glance at Puck, he pulled up a new window and played a reel of—

“DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK?!”

**~oOo~**

 “Motherfuckin’...better have been accepted...bunch of horseshit...fuckin’ Abrams and—”

“Noah, what in the world are you doing?”

Puck spun around and blinked some snow out of his eyes to see Berry in her multicolored striped coat and leggings.

“Woman, what the fuck are you wearing?!” Puck demanded, grabbing her arm and wrenching right up next to him so that he could pull her into his coat. It felt like he just hugged a damn snowman.

“Noah! Noah, let me—”

“Fuck, Berry, I know you own _pants_! You’ve worn them during our glee numbers! It’s like eight degrees! Why are you wearing fucking _leggings_?!”

“Noah, I appreciate your concern, but I honestly am all right—”

“No! No buts! Imma talk to the Fathers Berry! I don’t know what the fuck they’re thinking, letting you outta the house like this!”

“Well, what about you? Your poor head is exposed to the harsh weather! You know, you could catch a serious cold, Noah, you _have_ to keep your head warm.”

“At least my only problem is my head! You’re exposed all over the place! Put on some damn pants, Berry!”

Berry sighed, but she didn’t move out of his embrace. Puck smirked, wrapped his arms tighter around the little gremlin, and ducked his head into the crook of her neck. She was _freezing_ , but she smelled just like she did every winter—like Christmas and hot chocolate—only this time, he was getting huge whiffs of it that made his head spin.

“Noah, what are you doing out here anyway?” she asked, her voice muffled by his jacket.

Wow, he just now realized she was _super_ close. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

“Just...checking the mail.”

Shit. Thinking about it. Thank God it was cold.

“In front of Artie’s house?”

Cold slowly warming. Soft, smooth—SHIT.

“Um...he gets my mail sometimes.”

“Your addresses and names don’t sound anything alike. Mr. Wade the mailman isn’t that careless, Noah. He may be old, but he’s not _that_ old yet.”

God _damn_ she felt good in his arms.

“He...drinks whiskey during his runs in the winter to keep warm.” He’s such a fucking genius. Oh, no, wait. Damn.

“That still doesn’t make sense. If the man is drunk, you’d have to check every single mailbox in the vicinity,” Berry sighed, snuggling against his chest and _totally_ not helping matters. “Noah, stealing people’s mail is a felony, you know. And why is it a big envelope, anyway?”

Puck flinched. _Damn._

“Noah, is that one of Artie’s acceptance letters?!” she demanded excitedly, pulling away from him to try and grab the packet from his hands. “Where is it from? Columbia? Is it from Columbia? Please tell me it’s from Columbia!”

“Um...no, Rochester.”

She looked so defeated that he yanked her close again.

“What are you doing with Artie’s acceptance letter anyway?” she asked into his jacket again.

Puck flinched. Where are those damn Twix bars when you need them? He’s gonna have to stock up and start carrying them around wherever he goes...

“I’m...collecting...all his acceptance letters so I...can give them all to him at the same time.” Oh, fucking hell.

Berry stiffened in his arms. “Why in the world would you do that?”

“So I can get rid of the un-accepted letters and give all the accepted shit to him at the same time to make him, like, super-happy instead of getting small bursts of happiness on and off through the month. I can’t think of a legit Christmas present for him, all right?! Quit harassing me!”

Berry laughed, blowing her warm, hot-chocolate breath against his neck. “You couldn’t give him a gift card or something?”

“Wait, so you’re not mad that I’m, like, committing a felony?” he asked, shocked.

She shrugged. “You’ve done worse. At least you’ll give them all back without actually _opening_ the letters.”

Oh, HELL YES! Bullet dodged, baby!

“So how are your own college applications going, Noah?”

Oh, damn.

“They’re going...I haven’t heard from a couple yet,” he answered cagily.

She frowned up at him. “But you _have_ heard from others?”

“Yeah. Got accepted into Rollins College in Florida. Good business school and shit.”

“Noah, that’s wonderful! I’m so proud of you!” She snaked her arms closer inside his jacket and wrapped them around his waist. Oh, dear God. He was gonna have to shove some snow down his pants. “I knew you would be able to pull your grades up enough!”

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna go to Florida. Too fucking humid.”

“I didn’t think you’d have a problem with hot and sweaty areas. It’d give you an excuse to wear the bare minimum of clothing.”

OH, HELL.

“Yeah, Berry, but I like it during one damn season. Not all fucking year,” he choked out.

“Then why did you apply?”

He shrugged. “Just to see if I could get into an actual prestigious school.”

“Then where _are_ you going?”

He ran his hand through his Mohawk and sighed. “Look, Berry, I promised you I’d apply and shit, but I never actually said I’d _go_ anywhere.”

“NOAH!”

“I can’t afford to go to these places, baby. And besides, you know me. I head to college, it’s gonna be to major in sex and minor in partying.”

Berry actually _growled_ up at him. Like a midget grizzly bear.

He smirked, throwing her a bone she’d probably never even see coming. “I’m a bobcat, baby. I run solo, and you can’t control me.”

She pulled her arms from around him and sighed, pulling away. “All right then. I suppose it _is_ up to you. I just know you can really excel in college, Noah.”

“To persevere and to excel, yeah, yeah, yeah, Berry,” Puck grumbled, throwing another bone...

“Exactly! You’re only limiting yourself by saying you’ll only major in debauchery and minor in stupidity.”

...which soared right over her head again. Fine. She’ll find out eventually.

“College isn’t for everyone, Berry. I might just end up focusing on my music and getting into the business, you know?”

“But—”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure shit out.”

“Well, figure your _stuff_ out soon, Noah. You’re running out of time. Oh, no! I’m running out of time too! I have to go meet Kurt, Mercedes, and Blaine for coffee at the Lima Bean,” she said, glancing at her watch as she backed away. “You’re welcome to join us, Noah.”

“Nah, it’s cool. I got some other shit to do.”

“More mailboxes to raid?” she smirked.

Oh, good God, that smirk.

“Uh, yeah. I mean, no! No, Berry, damn. I’m not _always_ engaging in criminal behavior.”

She beamed at his vocabulary and then skipped away. He knew she was skipping to try and discreetly build up her body heat because she was always ranting about the dangers of running or skipping on ice.

Hm.

Now he knew what to get her for Hanukkah next week.

**~oOo~**

“Congrats, Lady Fingers,” Santana said, applauding softly. “Apparently New York high fashion is really demanding those bizarre outfits.”

Kurt scowled and threw a hateful glance at Puck. “Those allegedly bizarre outfits were not included in the application packet, remember? You were the one who was vehemently insisting that I was hallucinating and had simply misplaced the articles of clothing that were _indeed_ burned!”

“And thank the good Lord for that,” Mercedes sighed. “Kurt, seriously, those were pretty bad.”

Kurt continued to pout, but then he turned his attention onto his tormentor. “But apparently they liked my designs just as much as the _model_.”

Puck blanched and refused to turn and look up toward the highest risers where Kurt, Tina, Mercedes, and Quinn were sitting. The gleeks burst into laughter, and Puck wanted to set all of them on fire.

“Yeah, they totally asked if you were available,” Kurt continued, his face red from laughing.

“I hate you all,” Puck grumbled.

Even Schue and Pillsbury were laughing along with everyone. It was the last glee meeting before school let out for the holidays, and Schue decided to give everyone a free day.

“All right, all right, dumbasses! Enough laughing at the Puckasaurus! Y’all _wish_ you were enough of a badass model to be given a callback without even meaning to!”

“Mr. Puckerman, language,” Pillsbury chided through her chuckles.

Schue laughed. “All right, guys. Who else has been accepted early somewhere?”

“I got into OSU!” Finn said proudly. Berry beamed at him and rubbed his arm.

Puck let himself scowl for a second before clapping Finn on the back. “Congrats on the brain transplant, dude!”

Even Finn laughed at that one. “Shut up, jerk.”

“You know it’s true, bitch,” Puck smirked.

“Puck, language,” Pillsbury said again.

“Are you actually gonna go there, Finn?” Tina asked.

Finn shrugged and then looked at Berry. “I don’t know. I’ll keep my options open, but I’m actually looking into heading east after graduation.”

Santana scoffed. “I hope it’s ‘cause you wanna take a long walk into the Atlantic.”

“Satan, calm your tits,” Puck said, not wanting a repeat of Operation Roast Jones a month ago.

Pillsbury looked completely scandalized. “Puck! Oh, my goodness!”

Santana sighed and thankfully kept her trap shut when Berry shot her a dirty look.

“Artie, have you heard back from anyone yet?” Pillsbury asked. “You applied early decision to every one of your choices, you should’ve gotten some responses already.”

Artie grimaced. “I only actually heard back from one school.”

Berry whipped her head around to glare at Puck.

“But you got accepted into this school, right?” Schue asked worriedly. “Which one?”

“Columbia University School of the Arts,” Artie answered, sounding like he was still shocked himself.

The gleeks exploded.

“WHOA! AWESOME, DUDE!” Sam crowed, slapping Artie so hard that he almost pitched forward out of his wheelchair.

“Artie, that’s fantastic!” Brittany squealed, planting a loud, smacking kiss to his cheek.

“It’s weird, though, because I never heard back from _anyone_ _else_ , and I called the schools, and they said that they already shipped out my acceptance letters, and the post office said they’d been delivered. I’ve missed the deadlines for responding to their acceptances now.”

Puck shrugged. “This is Lima, remember? I doubt they’re too strict on inventory. Shit falls through the cracks.”

“Puck, for crying out loud,” Pillsbury sighed.

Sam, Mike, Berry, Kurt, and Blaine were the only ones who gave him a knowing look, having easily figured shit out.

“So I guess you’re going to film school then?” Puck asked Artie.

Apparently, Puck’s expression gave him away since Artie narrowed his eyes at him and shook his head.

“Since it’s the only school I heard from, yeah,” Artie grumbled.

Puck punched him on the shoulder. “It’s destiny, dude. Don’t pretend that you’re pissed.”

“Why _do_ you sound so irritated?” Pillsbury asked. “You got the full scholarship.”

Everyone’s mouths dropped.

“DUDE! YOU BEEN HOLDING OUT ON US?” Sam demanded.

“Wait, Artie, what have you been holding?” Brittany asked.

“Homeboy’s gonna be the next Spielberg, Blondie!” Mercedes laughed. “He’s gonna be a big-time Hollywood director, and he’s gonna do it without ever having to pay a cent!”

“Can we see the video you submitted?” Blaine asked.

“NO!” Puck and Berry blurted out simultaneously.

Everyone stared at them.

“Uh, why?” Quinn asked warily.

“We don’t have time,” Puck said quickly, jumping to his feet and heading for his guitar.

“Oh, yeah,” Schue said, clapping his hands. “Puck, you have a song you wanted to sing?”

“Yeah,” he answered as Schue vacated the stool to sit on the risers with Pillsbury. “Brits, I know you know this song, so gimme some backup.”

“Oh, my God! You can read my mind?!”

Puck sighed. “Just get your cute ass over here. Finn, drums, _por_ _favor_.”

“Do I know this song?” Finn asked, jumping up and heading for the set.

“Your mom does.”

Finn scowled and Puck shot him a dirty look. “Dude, your mom _does_ know the song. I heard her singing along to it in the car when she was at the gas station. Christ, you’ll recognize it soon enough.”

Once he got himself situated on the chair, he found his chord and turned to the gleeks. “This is dedicated to someone who’s been this massive help to me over the past couple months. You know who you are.”

Sam choked out a sob. “Buddy!”

The gleeks laughed as Sam mimed wiping his tears on a sleeve.

 _“First off, I can’t keep a promise. I’m no one to count on at all. Add on that I’m a coward, too_ _scared to return your call,”_ Puck sang, and Finn finally recognized the song and started the beat. _“But you don’t care. You keep sticking around while I’m acting a clown. You’re bigger.”_

 _“La la-la la-la la,”_ Brittany sang, twirling around Puck, swaying her hips to make the smirk on Santana’s face grow. _“La la-la la-la la.”_

_“‘Cause you’re still here, your feet stuck to the ground. Despite how silly it sounds, you’re bigger than me.”_

Okay, yeah, bitches, this was a Backstreet Boys song. And Kevin Richardson wasn’t even in it anymore, but Bekah knew the song and it was just fucking appropriate, and if Berry didn’t get this, she was just _stupid_.

Which she wasn’t.

Especially since her eyes started watering as she watched him sing straight at her.

He thanked God Finn always had to concentrate on drumming and couldn’t look around much at the same time. Otherwise he would’ve seen the serious looks he and Rachel were exchanging. He stepped down from the stool and walked over to the gleeks, weaving around their chairs as he sang.

_“It’s known that I’m a liar, often the blacker than white.”_

“Amen!” Artie crowed.

 _“Add on my unkind ego, no one’s less humble than I, but you don’t care.”_ And as Puck launched into the chorus, Santana, Brittany, and Artie came forward, clapping their hands and backing him up as Sam grabbed another guitar.

Well, so much for maintaining some dignity in that no one else knew he was singing a Backstreet Boys song. He thought no one would know since, you know, they’re the _Backstreet_ _Boys_ and hardly anyone knew their newer songs...

But whatever. They were singing and dancing to it too.

_“All the messed-up things I do, yeah, I swear, I’ll make it up to you.”_

_“Oh-oh-oh,”_ Brittany, Santana, and Mercedes harmonized.

_“Before you go and have enough, just let me make it better. I’ll try and measure up, I’ll try and measure up to you...”_

Berry grinned at him—brighter than she ever did to Finn, Jesse, or who-the-fuck-ever—and in that moment, he didn’t give a flying squirrel’s ass that Finn saw.

**~oOo~**

“Thank you _so_ much for having us over!”

Puck clenched his eyes shut as he locked his truck and refused to look at where his ma was clutching Rachel in a death-grip on the porch.

“Ma! Rachel’s gonna freeze! Let her get back in the house please?!”

“Noah, gimme!”

He glanced down at Bekah, who was relentlessly yanking on his jacket.

“I wanna give Rachel her present!” she whispered furiously, reaching for the huge gift bag Puck lifted out of the bed of his truck.

He scowled but gently brushed snow off her red ribbon headband. “So you can drop it? Uh, I don’t think so. This is heavy. You can get her dads’ stuff.”

Bekah didn’t put up a fight as he hauled her up so she could reach into the truck to grab the two wrapped boxes.

“Come in! Come in!” Hiram called, ushering Puck and Bekah to the house. “It’s starting to snow, and you don’t want to catch pneumonia and die before dinner!”

“Excuse Daddy,” Rachel said conspiratorially as Puck and Bekah stepped into the house. “He’s had a bit too much to drink already. We tried to keep him from the liquor, but he’s too sneaky.”

 _Ninja-Berries_. So it was hereditary.

“Should I expect a repeat of the last time I had dinner here?” Puck asked with a smirk as she shut and locked the door.

Rachel paled and stopped. Bekah giggled at her expression.

“Oh, I hope not. He wasn’t even _drinking_ then. Oh, no. He’s going to embarrass himself into oblivion! He’s—”

“Happy Hanukkah!” Puck interrupted her before she could fully launch into her freak out. He shoved the huge bag into her arms and she stumbled to lower it to the ground carefully.

“N-Noah! This is _enormous_! What is in here?!” she demanded, studying the bag that came all the way up to her waist.

Puck rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I never gave you a gift before, so this is me trying to make up for it. Seven days’ worth of presents for Hanukkah to compensate for, like, almost twenty years of stupid.”

“I helped pick some stuff out too!” Bekah chirped indignantly.

“But I paid since this cheapskate couldn’t bother to contribute,” Puck said, narrowing his eyes at his sister jokingly.

“Well, you signed the bag ‘from Noah!’ You didn’t wanna put my name on it, so you didn’t get any money!” Bekah retorted.

That was what he just fucking loved about his sister. They got equal shares of the Puckerman attitude, but _thank_ _God_ for the fact that Puck was the one to hoard all the delinquency genes. Bekah saved her money like a goddamn accountant; he spent his allowance on slushies he threw in Rachel’s face. Well, he _used_ to.

Rachel looked at the two of them with wide, teary brown eyes. “You didn’t have to...”

Puck smirked. “Just like how _you_ didn’t have to get either of us anything.”

She blushed. “How did you know?”

Puck shrugged and ignored the question. “So you were gonna try to make _us_ feel awkward by giving us presents while _we_ didn’t get you anything, huh? Devious, Berry.”

Bekah matched his smirk and stance. He wanted to lock her in a bear-hug. He was so proud.

 _“Devious,”_ she parroted. “How do you live with yourself?”

Rachel set one hand on her hip and smiled down at Bekah. “I bake an obscene amount of sugar cookies.”

And Bekah broke. The smirk vanished to be replaced with a crack-laced expression of pure joy. “You have cookies?! Now?!”

“ _After_ dinner,” Rachel reminded her. “But, yes, I made more than enough so you can take some home.”

Bekah _legit_ looked like she was about to burst and faint at the same time. Somehow, she managed to compose herself long enough to lunge forward and latch her arms around Rachel. “I love you.”

Rachel laughed and hugged back. “And I made butterfly-shaped ones just for you and used purple and teal icing.”

Puck laughed when Bekah whimpered, and then tried to keep from grinning at her next words:

“Please, please, _please_ dump Finn and marry Noah?” Bekah begged. “Just so you, like, _have_ to bake me cookies all the time just ‘cause we’re family?”

Rachel smiled and kissed the top of Bekah’s head in a way that made Puck’s chest tight. “Sweetie, all you ever have to do is ask, and I’ll make purple and teal butterfly sugar cookies for you. I can even teach you how to make them too so you can have them anytime you want. What do you say?”

Bekah choked on a dry sob. “Just so you know, I’m not letting go of you for the rest of the night.”

Rachel threw her head back and laughed, and Puck had never wanted her as much as he did _right_ _then_.

And for a brief five minutes, he completely forgot that his ma was there...until she came up and smacked him upside the head.

“Noah, carry that huge present for Rachel,” she chided. “The poor girl can fit into that bag. What makes you think she can lug it around like nothing?”

“No, Mrs. Puckerman, I can handle it,” Rachel protested, reaching for the bag again.

Puck purposely waited until her fingers were about to curl around the handles before he bent and grabbed the bag, making sure that his fingers stroked her hand. He smirked at the way she blushed, quickly straightened up, and cleared her throat, but he completely ignored the bone-deep tingles that ran under the skin of his hand.

“Thank you, Noah,” she muttered, blushing a little.

Puck also chose to ignore the way his ma’s mouth was moving as she sent up a silent prayer.

“How’s Beth, Puck?” Leroy asked, handing Aviva a glass of wine as they all sat down on the couches in the living room.

“She’s good. Gettin’ bigger every day,” Puck answered fondly as he and Bekah set the presents down under the table with the lit menorah. “She and Shelby went up to New York to visit some family, though.”

“Oh, yes, I heard,” Hiram said. “I think it’s good for her to take some time away from Lima. She’s all by herself here even if she does have you and Quinn to help out with Beth some nights.”

Puck sighed. It was gonna be a long night of small talk.

“I wish she’d stayed or at least left Beth with Noah. We need to expose Beth to her Jewish heritage.”

 _Oh, no_. He’d _much_ rather have the small talk over this.

“Ma, she’s only half-Jewish,” Puck pointed out with a grimace.

“Which makes it even worse! We have to keep her from going full Christian,” Aviva said emphatically.

“Ma!” Puck and Bekah chorused.

Aviva sighed. “You two are horrible Jews. The Christians are dead-set on witnessing  and preaching to all the Gentiles and converting them all, and what are _we_ doing? Nothing.”

“Ma, for the love of God, you’re not even a practicing Jew,” Puck argued with a sheepish smile at the Berries’ way. “You don’t even know any Hebrew prayers.”

 “Yeah, ‘cause you got rid of all our Jewish prayer books,” Bekah added, “‘cause you said they were taking up too much space at home.”

“Feh!” She waved Bekah’s comment away. “The prayers are in our hearts. It will come to us.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Bekah persisted.

Aviva shrugged. “That’s what Google is for.”

“And _we’re_ the bad Jews?” Puck demanded incredulously. “You’re the one setting the bad example for us.”

“At least I’m trying to teach you how to be Jewish,” Aviva insisted.

“No, according to you, _Google_ is,” Puck corrected her.

“The Lord doesn’t care which path you take as long as you get to Him eventually.”

Puck rubbed his forehead. He was getting no help from the Berries either since they seemed _way_ too entertained by his family’s little argument. He glanced at Rachel to see her the dimples in her cheeks and her eyes getting all crinkly with her smile.

He smirked.

He’d be playing shit disturber with his ma all night then.

**~oOo~**

“Oh, yes, I was reading all about it,” Aviva said matter-of-factly. “It stands for ‘major histocompatibility complex,’ and it essentially means that people with two very different sets of genes would naturally be attracted to each other to encourage a genetic diversity.”

“That makes _so_ much sense!” Hiram said after taking a sip of water. Rachel had banned him from any form of alcohol for the rest of the night. “Opposites attract! It’s not just some abstract idea anymore! It’s an actual, proven scientific theory!”

Bekah kicked Puck’s shin from across the table and jerked her head in Rachel’s direction discreetly. He glowered at her and planted his foot against the side of the seat and pushed a little, making her tip backward. She expertly shifted her weight forward and brought the chair back down on all fours before glaring right back at him.

All he had to do was mouth one word to make her stop:

 _Finn_.

Bekah sighed and turned back to the latkes on her plate. Then she lifted her head to smirk evilly.

Oh, hell. He didn’t inherit _all_ the shit disturber genes of the family.

“So blondes and brunettes would be better together? Like Quinn and Noah?” she asked Aviva innocently.

Their ma choked on the bite of food she’d been chewing on.

“Holy hell no,” she rasped as Puck pounded on her back and handed her a glass of water. “The MHC complex would create fireworks and supernovas. Noah and that Fabray girl would be a nuclear explosion.”

Puck snorted. “So what’s your definition of opposite, Ma?”

“Well, a bad boy and a sweet, virtuous young lady.”

Leroy and Hiram were having a very hard time hiding their smiles as Rachel blushed and tried to take calm, even breaths.

Bekah was grinning like an idiot, and Puck refused to look anywhere but his plate. Normally, at a comment like that, he’d turn to Rachel, smile lecherously, and wink, but it was his frickin’ _Ma_ talking.

“Ma, I don’t think that theory’s based on personality,” he said through his teeth.

“Well, one indicator of the presence of MHC complex is if a woman finds a man’s sweat appealing.”

“Ma, we’re _eating_!” Puck protested as Bekah burst out laughing.

But Aviva wasn’t done yet.

“Rachel, do you find Finn’s sweat appealing?”

Rachel grimaced and could not look any more uncomfortable. “Um, no, Mrs. Puckerman.”

Aviva clicked her tongue against her teeth and shrugged. “Well, MHC doesn’t account for all relationships. Do you find Noah’s sweat appealing?”

“MA!”

Rachel was blushing furiously now—just a shade lighter than her red dress. “I—uh—wha—I—um—”

“So, Puck, where’s Sam?” Leroy asked, saving his daughter.

Puck sighed in relief. “He’s spending Christmas with his family in LA.”

“Oh, yes, Stevie and Stacy are _fantastic_!” Hiram said. “I can’t stop watching that show now. The innocence and emotion they bring should garner them at the very least an Emmy nomination. Sam must be very proud.”

Puck nodded. “He records all the episodes and saves them onto a DVD until he can get the official box set of the season. It’s like a ritual every Thursday now. We all sit down and watch.”

“The invitation to come join us still stands, Rachel honey,” Aviva said sweetly, knowing full well that Thursdays were designated Finchel date nights.

“Ma, she’s busy Thursdays,” Puck reminded her pointedly.

“Feh. She needs more Jewish company during the week.”

Bekah frowned. “Sam’s not Jewish, Ma.”

“He lives in our home. He eats our food. He’s constantly in our presence. He’s Jewish enough.”

“Ma, I don’t think it works that way...”

“Beks, leave her in her ignorance.”

Aviva smacked her son upside the head again. “Don’t call your mother ignorant.”

“What, Ma? You want me to call you ‘obtuse’ instead?”

Aviva sighed. “I don’t know if I should cry that you’re mean to me or praise the Lord that you know how to use a thesaurus.”

“Go with the second, Ma,” Puck said, putting an arm around her shoulders and kissing her on the temple. “You already knew I was mean. It’s no surprise.”

“So, Aviva, are there any men in your life?” Hiram asked.

“You switching teams on me?” Leroy joked.

“For _Aviva_? In a heartbeat!”

“Good God, no,” Aviva answered with a slight blush, waving her hand dismissively. “I don’t have the time to worry about men. I have to marry off Noah and Bekah before I can focus on myself.”

“Jeez, Ma,” Puck and Bekah grumbled in unison.

“Bekah, Puck, would you have any problem with your mom finding another man?” Leroy asked.

The two Puckerman kids glanced at each other.

“Nah. As long as she’s happy,” Puck answered simply.

“But if he’s a douche, then we’re breaking out the brass knuckles,” Bekah added.

“You don’t have a problem with someone replacing your dad?” Hiram asked worriedly.

Puck snorted. “No dad to replace.”

“So we’ve just been _chopped_ _liver_ all these years, boy? We changed a few of your diapers too, you know,” Leroy said, smirking.

“I was the one who predicted your current womanizing ways after the first time we saw you commando,” Hiram threw out nonchalantly.

Bekah barked out a laugh.

“And _you_ , young lady, need to watch yourself. You’re the one we’d put into a dress and not even two minutes later, you’d be running around the house buck-naked,” Leroy said.

Bekah blushed as Puck chortled.

“I remember that!” he laughed. “Every time someone came over, someone had to hold on to you so you wouldn’t rush out the door and put on a show!”

“Oh, goodness, speaking of shows!” Aviva laughed. “Leroy, remember when Rachel and Noah put on that concert when they sang almost the _entire_ soundtrack of that _Anastasia_ movie?”

 _“I’ll be there when the world stops turning, I’ll be there when the storm is through. In the end, I wanna be standing at the beginning with you.”_ Bekah sang softly. “I remember you guys sang me that as my lullaby when I was little. Noah, you still had a super-squeaky voice.”

“Oh, _yes_! You two had me record that so Bekah would have _personal_ lullabies that weren’t sung by generic Disney princesses,” Leroy laughed.

Hiram had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. “Rachel had to make you re-record it _so_ many times.”

Puck didn’t remember shit to be _that_ funny, but whatever. _Parents_. He, Rachel, and Bekah were just sitting there, fucking wallowing in embarrassment as their parents reminisced about the stupidest things that they all hoped would _never_ see the light of day.

And then it hit him.

They were a fucking family already.

**~oOo~**

“Baby, put those plates down for a second, I wanna talk to you about something.”

Rachel set the plates down in the sink gently before turning to face Leroy. “What is it, Dad?”

The tall black man, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his hip against the edge of the counter as he tried to put his thoughts into a cohesive sentence rather than just a random jumble of _but_ ’s, _you_ ’s, _Noah_ ’s, and _Finn_ ’s.

“I know I usually leave this sort of thing to your daddy because to be frank, he’s the effeminate one who actually knows how to deal with this, but because of that same characteristic, I don’t think he’s best equipped to ask this question.”

Rachel’s brow furrowed worriedly, glancing at the kitchen entrance where the Puckermans’ voices were drifting into. They were arguing about what sounded like Easy-Bake Ovens, and Puck was deliberately trying to antagonize his mother.

“Hiram gets hung up on the details sometimes, and instead of minimizing the gray areas, he makes _everything_ gray. So I’m going to try and give it to you black and white.”

Rachel nodded.

“Why are you with Finn?” Leroy asked bluntly. “And it’s not a rhetorical question or something that I want you to ponder on. I want to know why you feel like you and Finn are soul mates.”

She stared back at him unflinchingly, but he knew his daughter. He knew she was employing her acting skills.

But she wasn’t a writer.

“Because he loves and me, and I love him. That’s enough.”

Leroy bent his head closer to hers. “No, sweetie, it’s not. Give me a solid reason.”

“There is something palpable when Finn and I are together, Dad. I love him, and I give up trying to justify our relationship. We _work_. He makes me better.”

Leroy frowned. “How so?”

“He…grounds me. He believes in me. He supported me during the debacle with Mercedes, h-he… Dad, I can’t list all of things he is. He’s just… _Finn_. And… He…he’s my leading man, Dad. I _need_ him.”

Leroy uncrossed his arms and yanked Rachel into a tight embrace. “You shouldn’t _need_ anyone, baby. You need to _want_ them for them, not because they fit a role. Do you agree that Mercedes would have brought out a different dimension of Maria?”

“Well, of course. That would’ve been Maria with a lot more _chutzpah_ ,” Rachel muttered.

“And do you agree that someone else could easily bring a new dimension to the role of your leading man?”

Rachel, a strong believer of people being born to play certain roles, also believed that _certain_ roles could fit and mold into other roles.

“Finn may be the best candidate to play your leading man, but…someone else could play it too if you give them a chance.”

Rachel let him go and turned back to the dishes. “But the role’s been filled, Dad. And No— _no one_ would want to be relegated to an understudy in that type of scenario.”

“Then maybe someone’s been miscast.”

Rachel and Leroy jumped and saw Puck leaning against the table, holding Leroy’s present in one hand. Rachel immediately froze when she saw his expression— _blank_. She didn’t like it.

She wanted the Smirk™, the Leer™, the Eyebrow Waggle™ – _anything_ but that look. She swallowed as her fingers went cold even though the faucet wasn’t on. She was…panicking? But why would she be panicking? There was nothing to panic about.

Dear Lord, how long had he been standing there?

Why do these people insist on trying to break up Finchel? Finchel was epic. It was endgame. It was the cliché story because it _worked_. The equation would result in a happy ending, not some convoluted _Inception-_ like ending where everything’s been said and done, but you still don’t even know the ending.

Because Finn and Rachel were _it_. They’d overcome the obstacles. They’d overcome _Santana_ , for goodness sake. Sure, they still had their faults and insecurities, but they were good. They were happy.

They worked.

Past indiscretions were just bumps and missed turns in the road, but they still ended up in the right direction.

Puck’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

“The other Berry is ranting about how it’s time to open presents, and I sure as shit don’t wanna go against him right now, so according to Hiram, it’s time to ‘haul ass and haul presents.’ I don’t know what the hell that means, but what-the-hell-ever.”

Then he turned and walked back to the living room, and both Rachel and Leroy knew that he heard pretty much everything worth hearing—Puck never cursed in front of Hiram or Leroy.

**~oOo~**

He kept his shit together. If not for Bekah’s sake, then for his ma and the Fathers Berry. He would not, under any circumstances, lose his cool over something so stupid. Over something he already knew was gonna turn into shit. Because it started out as shit, it would end in shit. Therefore it was all _shit_. A shit lead. A shit understudy. A shit play. It was shit on a new shitty level that was just shit out of luck and so would be doomed to shit.

 _Blinded by the ass-rays,_ he reminded himself over and over as Bekah, Ma, Hiram, and Leroy opened their presents. _She is blinded by those goddamn fucking ass-rays whose fucking radiation scrambled her brain and turned her into a weepy, needy girl._

And he didn’t want weepy, needy girls.

He wanted Rachel Berry. The one who gave more than two fucks about his well-being. The one he spent almost the entirety of last summer with, hanging out and shit _as_ _friends_ —no drama, no bitching, nothing. The one who baked him cookies when she accidentally whacked him in the face with his own guitar. The one who nagged his ass to the point of insanity and practically forced him to get accepted to—

But it didn’t fucking matter now.

Judging by the small heart-shaped cluster of diamonds hanging from a gold chain around her neck and the way she shifted in her seat all night, Finn fucking won. They were past the point of no return, and all the plans Rachel Berry had for her future were halfway out the window.

What happened to not _needing_ men? What happened to focusing on her career? What happened to making her way onto the big White Way? What happened to keeping her options open? What happened to preferring rubies over diamonds? What happened to not _fucking losing her virginity until she was twenty-fucking-five_?

Was Puck mad?

Of course he wasn’t mad.

Bitch, please.

Why would he be mad? She wasn’t his girlfriend. Apparently, she hardly even counted as his _ex_ -girlfriend. She was his friend, and he was her...pervy, delinquent friend, but a friend nonetheless.

Who cares if Finn slept with her? Who cares if it was probably a mess? Who cares if she _said_ it was amazing but secretly thought it just kind of hurt and was pretty damn awkward and uncomfortable? Who cares if a girl’s first time should be fucking _special_ with someone who actually knows what he’s doing and can control himself without needing to think about killing a fucking mailman? Who the fuck cares?

Puck?

No.

He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t have two shits to rub together let alone one to give.

So he sat there in her house, caring about the smiles Bekah, Hiram, Leroy, and his Ma were sending him but _not_ caring about the... _person_ who was most definitely _not_ looking at him. Nope. Not caring one fucking bit.

Because he was an understudy. And who gives a flying fuck about the understudy?

“Hiram, Aviva, can you help me out in the kitchen? There’s a Jewish recipe that I wanted to try, but I need your opinions about it,” Leroy said, getting up from his armchair.

“Come on, Bekah,” Aviva said, practically hauling Bekah up from the couch and forcibly dragging her after the Fathers Berry.

Well.

This sucks.

Puck stared at his phone, scrolling through the news articles like he actually intended on reading them—which he didn’t—but when a dark blue gift bag was set down right between his feet, he looked up.

“Happy Hanukkah, Noah,” she said quietly.

He swallowed and set his phone down on the couch. Then he pulled the bag closer and started pulling out the silvery stuffing-paper-shit. On the very top was a packet of new guitar picks and a couple packs of blank sheet music.

“Because I know you write your own songs, and I know you write them on loose leaf paper, so I thought that maybe you should officialize your songs and put them on sheet music so you can...you know...”

Next he pulled out a white box tied with a silver ribbon, which he pulled off and stuffed into his pocket before opening the lid to reveal two dozen sugar cookies shaped like guitars and colored like his own.

“I didn’t think that needed much explanation, but I do know how much you and Bekah like my cookies—”

“We don’t just _like_ them, Berry,” he interrupted gruffly. “These are legendary cookies. We _love_ them.”

She smiled a little, but his cheeks wouldn’t move even to _pretend_. So he looked back down into the bag and pulled out a...leather jacket with warm, flannel lining.

“I felt that your current jacket was getting fairly worn, and since it may still hold a substantial amount of sentimental value for you, I thought I would give you a substitute to prolong your jacket’s lifetime by—”

“I got it, Berry. I don’t need an essay.”

He pulled out two big books next, and for a second, he was a little disappointed. Until he saw that one was a DC encyclopedia and the other was a Marvel encyclopedia. She got him two encyclopedias for _comics_.

“I bought two for Sam as well, but I gave it to him before he left for California...”

He reached down one last time and pulled out a soft, black beanie with flannel lining. Inside was stitched in shiny gold thread: _Belongs to Resident BAMF, Noah “Puck” Puckerman. Return or Die._

“Because we can’t risk you freezing your brain. You don’t use it often, but I believe that it’s still a vital organ of your body.”

He looked up to see her smirking at him a little. The corner of his lip turned up and he stood up, gently setting his presents on the couch. Then he wrapped his arms around his fucking gremlin, pressed his lips against her soft, smooth, warm cheek, and hugged her close.

“Thank you, Rachel.”

She threw her arms around his waist and practically buried herself into his chest. After a couple more seconds, he pulled away to reach for her own present.

“Your turn,” he said, holding it to her.

She sat down on the armchair next to the couch, and he set the bag down next to her.

As she pulled out a pair of skinny jeans with a star on the right cheek, big comfy boots with a star-zipper, a white hat with a star on it, a white scarf with sparkly gold stars, black earmuffs with stars on each ear-thing, black leather gloves with stars in the palms, and a soft, fluffy sweater with a pretty star-design wrapped around one sleeve, she brought out the weepy Rachel. Tears were streaming down her face as she sat in the armchair, surrounded by clothes. Usually she hated it when people bought her clothes because it usually encouraged a massive change in her wardrobe, but she knew that wasn’t his intention.

He was trying to keep her warm.

At first, he was a little worried because she was using one of her new boots to wipe her tears, but when he bent down to try and pull the boot from her face long enough to find out what the hell her problem was, she dropped the shoe and launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burrowing her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder and almost knocking him onto his ass.

He sighed and pulled her closer, straightening up and lifting her along with him. He held her close as she kept crying. He rubbed her back gently and kissed the side of her head, listening to her mumbling, “No one ever bought me boots before, Noah. _No_ _one_. Not even Dad or Daddy. _Boots_ , Noah. _Boots_.”

**~oOo~**

The scene did not go unwatched. Four heads, stacked one on top of the other, were poking out of the kitchen entrance, watching.

“Hiram, now!” Aviva hissed.

Hiram reached for the kitchen radio and pressed play. _White_ _Christmas_ drifted out from the speakers, and Aviva turned to glare at Hiram.

“What happened to encouraging the attraction by using their own genes against them?!” Aviva demanded.

“Jewish music is not _romantic_ , Aviva,” Leroy pointed out.

“They will _not_ fall in love under the dulcet tones of the soundtrack of _Fiddler_ _on_ _the_ _Roof_!” Hiram hissed.

Bekah just giggled.

**~oOo~**

“Our parents are crazy,” Puck muttered as Rachel’s sobs finally faded as they listened to the song.

She shrugged and rested her head on his shoulder, and he began to move back and forth with the music.

He didn’t put her down, and she didn’t ask him to. They’d been here before...only Rachel was on the ground, and she was single as they danced to Sam singing, but it was kinda the same thing. They were dancing again, their presents on the chair and couch and their families watching.

And just like before, neither of them thought about Finn.


	8. Warbler

Sam walked out of the bus terminal and immediately spotted the familiar forest-green truck. He vaguely wondered if that was why Rachel decided on the forest green beanie she gave him for Christmas—because of his and Puck’s disastrous attempt at car detailing that resulted in Puck’s truck going from dark blue to purple to lavender and finally to forest green.

Okay, okay, fine. It was _his_ disastrous attempt. In his defense, he was trying to do it for Puck’s birthday, but it was the thought that counted.

He really liked that Rachel put so much thought into her gifts. She even sewed in gold thread on the inside of the beanie in question: _Belongs to Samuel “Sam” Evans. Return or be swallowed whole_. He remembered that it was a reference to the famous Rachel Berry House Party where they played spin-the-bottle, and when his spin landed on her, she’d asked,

“Promise not to swallow me whole?”

In his defense (again), he’d been drunk, so Puck couldn’t get mad at him for a little shameless flirting. “Well, you _are_ small enough, and I’m pretty sure you _would_ taste pretty awesome.”

And then he kissed her and knew _exactly_ why Blaine rethought his gay-ness and why the resident sex shark was finally hooked.

Girl kissed better than Brittany and Santana put together.

But then he shook his head, waved at Puck, tossed his duffel into the back, and hopped into the passenger seat.

“Hey, dude! How was your—whoa! You’re wearing a hat! I don’t think I ever seen you wear a hat in all the time I’ve known you,” Sam said, grinning at the black beanie. Then a thought occurred to him. “Wait, wait.”

He brushed a hand over his own beanie and then snatched off the one sitting on Puck’s head. He took note of the ‘hawk trim before holding the hat out of Puck’s reach and flipping it to see the gold embroidery.

“Rachel gave you a hat too? Chick is awesome. She gave me this and two encyclopedias for Marvel and DC too.” Sam tossed the hat back at Puck, but then frowned when he realized his normally obscenity-spewing best friend was dangerously quiet.

Knowing that a point-blank question would just get him some caveman-grunt, he decided to try and piss off Puck to try and get a response.

In retrospect, pissing off a former juvenile delinquent with pyromaniac tendencies and a slight issue with anger management probably wasn’t one of Sam’s better ideas, but in this case, he didn’t need to worry.

“Um, Stevie and Stacy got you something for Christmas,” Sam said in an attempt to make Puck stop _glowering_ straight ahead. “The present’s wrapped in Elmo paper, but the contents are pretty badass even by your standards. And while I think they’re geniuses for learning how to operate a Mac so quickly, I _really_ don’t like that they managed to order this. I think it’s kind of cute and scary at the same time—like baby geniuses. The fact that they’re babies gives them the cute factor, but the genius is scary. Like, if they’re this smart now, imagine how they are later. They could be evil masterminds who’ll enslave the world for their own twisted purposes. And you’re so busy worrying about that and being all paranoid that you barely even consider that they could also grow up to be the scientists who come up with a way for you to transfer your consciousness into an alien clone so you can better learn and understand an alien culture. And then it brings you back to worrying because they could also be the ones who want to learn more about the aliens just to exploit them and take the rich mineral deposits under their land. And then you just wish you could lock your kids up in a tower and hope to God that they will never find out enough about the world to make either of those possibilities a reality because you feel like the risk you’re taking of having them turn out to be evil is pretty much equal to the hope that they’ll be the ones saving the world. And then you just feel drained because you’ve thought way too much in a small amount of time.”

And when Puck didn’t screech to a stop to strangle him for talking so much, Sam immediately knew something _seriously_ _bad_ happened while he was gone.

Jeez. Leave for a week and everything just spirals out of control.

What would the gleeks do without him? Man, if his parents had decided to move to Tennessee during the summer like they’d been planning to, who knows what would’ve happened? Half the club would’ve jumped the glee-ship as soon as the first signs of dissent sprouted up, Puck would’ve started some grimace-inducing secret relationship with Shelby, and Finn would’ve developed some weird complex where he thinks everything is being ripped from his hands—Rachel, glee, and his football career.

Sam was like the friggin’ _linchpin_ of this group, and they didn’t even know it. He mentally patted himself on the back for realizing his own hidden importance and then smacked himself upside the head for forgetting his initial train of thought: What the heck happened to Puck?

“Dude, are you okay?” he asked.

Puck _still_ didn’t say a word. He just shrugged.

“Um, how was the Hanukkah dinner with the Berries?” Sam persisted.

If it wasn’t for the almost-imperceptible tick in Puck’s jaw, Sam would’ve continued playing twenty (or forty or sixty) questions.

Something happened with Rachel. Again.

But how bad could it have been? Puck was wearing her present, for crying out loud. If he was genuinely pissed, that hat would either be in the bottom of his closet, under his bed, or still in its wrappings.

He obviously still had a thing for her simply because he was wearing the hat, but something happened at the Berries’ to make something change. But _what_ changed?

“We still going to Finn’s for New Years?” Sam asked, after carefully thinking out his question.

The left corner of Puck’s mouth turned up into a sneer for less than a second, but Sam caught it. Apparently, something involving _Finn_ happened. But that was still pretty vague—anything involving Rachel somehow always involved Finn anyway.

So nothing had changed Puck’s stance on his approval of the Rachel Berry/Finn Hudson relationship. Didn’t wanna be around them, therefore he’d minimize exposure.

(Dyslexia, you are being bitchslapped into the Jurassic Period! Yeah! Sam Evans is a _genius_!)

Okay, so he still didn’t like Finchel, but a problem arose involving Rachel. But _WHAT_?! Dang.

(No, no, no! Dyslexia, stop! Go back to the dinosaurs. Stop it! No, don’t cross into the Dark Ages! You stop right there!)

“Um, who’s your next glee-victim for Operation TBJP?” Sam blurted out desperately.

It was small. Almost inaudible. But there it was. The motion that answered it all.

(Dyslexia, go crawl into your prehistoric hole, because you have just been slapped, bitch!)

Puck sighed.

But it wasn’t the normal sigh he’d give when Sam was getting on his nerves. It was the sigh he’d make when Bekah was working so damn hard to beat him at Mario Kart that he just had to let her win because Puck was just a _marshmallow_ underneath all the spikes.

Puck was giving up on Operation Thundering Blitzkrieg of Jewish Puckleberry.

 _Crap_.

He didn’t still like Finchel and he _still_ had feelings for Rachel, but he was _giving_ _up_. He wasn’t gonna fight for her anymore. Well, not that he did much _fighting_ technically, but this whole operation was his form of fighting for her. He was being nice—for _her_. And Sam knew he was using Beth as his cover, that he was being nice to prove he could be a good father, but Sam knew better than that. Puck getting into his secret school (which he _still_ refuses to tell anyone, that party-pooper) was how he proved himself to Beth. Being nice to the gleeks was to build up team spirit so they could get to nationals and win and prove  that he could be a worthwhile member of the club to the one person who needed the club the most.

Sam should be a psychiatrist or a therapist or _something_. He was a _genius_.

YEAH, BITCH! Not just an oblivious idiot anymore!

Sam turned to see Puck staring at him with a mixture of disgust and worry.

Oh. He said that out loud. Complete with fist pump.

“Just...ignore me,” Sam muttered. “Just thinking about something.”

And so Puck obliged and ignored him for the rest of the ride home to the Puckerman house.

Not good. Not good at all.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and immediately started typing out a group text which now included Artie after he, Santana, Brittany, Blaine, Kurt, and Mike cornered him in the AV room to demand to see what Puck and Rachel hadn’t wanted them to see—which was eight minutes of sheer brilliance.

_Sent to: Brit, Santana, Kurt, Blaine, Chang, Artie_

_911! OPERATION THUNDERING BLITZKRIEG OF JEWISH PUCKLEBERRY IN JEOPARDY—Puck giving up on Berry!_

He needed to convene with the rest of his fellow operatives. Their point man had just defected.

**~oOo~**

Mercedes had apparently been extended an invitation since she was seated next to Kurt when the TBJP operatives convened in Santana’s living room.

“What?!” Mercedes demanded when she saw that Santana was giving her a dirty, skeptical look. “I heard about what Puck’s doing, and I’d prefer Rachel with him than Finn. The entire dynamic of the club would change.”

“Yeah, Rachel would be too busy getting all sexed up by Puck so she’d be more willing to give up some solos,” Artie agreed.

“And _that_ is why you’re my boy,” Mercedes said, giving Artie a high-five. “You totally get me. And if she still acts like she’s got a stick up her ass, then Puck can knock her down a few levels. You see how easily he can shut her down.”

“It _is_ pretty epic,” Sam said. “His strategy is foolproof—cut her off before she can get started. But somehow, he’s the only one who can do it. She can just barrel through everyone else.”

“I know this is hella weird for me to say, but I cannot wait for that girl to get laid. She needs to _relax_ ,” Mercedes said.

“And give you all the solos,” Blaine added with a smirk.

Mercedes nodded. “Goes without saying, baby.”

“Well, the deed’s been done,” Santana announced suddenly, making everyone turn and stare. “The hairy veils have been parted. The Martian probe has landed on Venus. The fabled Berry-Cherry has been popped.”

“WHAT THE HELL?!”

“Rachel cheated?!”

“Bitch, you be lyin’!”

“What are hairy veils? Oh! Satan! Jeez!”

“Oh, God, I hope they didn’t do it on any of the couches at home. Or my bed.”

“Wait, wait, Santana, how do you know?” Blaine asked, frowning.

“She called me as soon as she got home afterwards,” Santana answered with a grimace.

“Her and _Puck_?” Sam muttered. “No wonder he was so upset. He’s _guilty_.”

“ _What?_ ” Santana demanded. “Trouty-Mouth, you’re an idiot! She lost it to Sasquatch! I’d much rather classify it as bestiality, but whatevs.”

“That must be why Puck gave up,” Kurt mused. “Rachel is the type of girl to stick to her fairy tales. If she thinks she’s found her Prince Charming, then she’ll believe it ‘til the day she dies. And because they’ve solidified it by sleeping together, she’s never going to let him go now.”

“And Puck knows Rachel almost as good as you do, Kurt. He must have realized that what hope of Finchel dying out by college is snuffed out because she lost her virginity to Finn,” Blaine expounded.

“So what do we do now?” Sam asked, running his hands through his hair.

“I guess it’s done?” Mercedes asked uncertainly.

“No, no, no!” Brittany cried. “We can’t just give up! Scooby may be in the Scooby Snacks van now, but it means we’re gonna have to work twice as hard to get him out because he doesn’t know that those Scooby Snacks are poisonous!”

“Are you comparing Rachel to a slobbery Great Dane?” Kurt asked, with one eyebrow raised.

“And calling Finn a van of poisonous Scooby Snacks?” Blaine added, chuckling. He was still just a teensy-bit bitter about Finn flipping out on him about being the captain of glee.

“I love you, Brit-Brit,” Santana murmured.

“It was Puck’s metaphor,” Brittany explained.

“We don’t give that boy enough credit,” Mercedes said.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Sam asked, rephrasing his initial question. “Puck gave up, Rachel’s burned a bridge, and we’re up a creek with no boat or paddle.”

Mike sighed, reading Brittany’s calculating expression correctly. “We’re gonna have to work double time. We gotta convince _both_ Puck and Rachel that they belong together.”

“And how we gonna go about doing that?” Santana demanded, still not believing she was part of this.

Berry was her kind-of friend—OH, ALL RIGHT, BITCHES! Berry was her friend! But _this_?! This was just going above and beyond the call of duty, and it wasn’t even Santana’s duty to begin with.

Okay, okay, _fine_ , it may or may not have been her secret and unofficial duty to keep Berry from being de-virginized by the missing link between humans and giraffes, but that entire experience was an epic fail _on_ _so_ _many_ _different_ _levels_.

Berry had called her up in a mini-panic, and Santana may or may not have driven all the way to the Berry household at four in the fucking morning because that first time was a fucking _disaster_. Just like Santana had anticipated, Berry had to fake her own orgasm because that idiot had a systems overload and his primary valves released too soon.

Good God. No girl—okay, maybe that Nazario chick could deserve it—should ever have a first time like that.

“Okay, okay, _escuchar,_ _mis_ _siervos_. Listen up, bitches,” Santana said decisively.

Everyone turned and stared at the glint in the she-devil’s eyes and knew _this_ plan—whatever it’s gonna be—was gonna be _it_.

“I’m only doing this ‘cause Berry and I could take over this school with the bat of our eyes, and the only reason we’re not is ‘cause of that idiot she calls a boyfriend. So as my first step to gets my foot in the doorway of world domination, I’m redirecting my bitch-laser on this bullshit excuse of a relationship. Puck is my boy and he deserves the other half of my unholy vessel. Hudson is a douche that has been _kick-ball-steppin’_ on my last nerve, and ever since he called Brit an idiot for thinking Rory was a leprechaun, I have been waiting to gets my revenge on. So this is what we’re gonna do, bitches.”

**~oOo~**

“Puck!”

Puck turned around to see Blaine waving at him from across the street. He would’ve just nodded a greeting and walked off, but the ex-Warbler was jogging across the street to join him, and it wasn’t like he was just gonna walk off. Anderson was cool, and even though he hadn’t been in glee for over a year, he was pretty much part of the gang ever since Kurt transferred to Dalton.

Blaine jogged right up to him and clapped him on the shoulder with this huge grin.

Puck frowned. He suddenly felt the urge to make this guy just as miserable as he was because he was always way too damn chipper. Brittany was like a dumb, completely-oblivious kind of chipper that wasn’t really _that_ annoying. Berry had a crazy psycho kind of chipper that just got on people’s nerves ‘cause you never know whether or not she’s actually like that or if she’s just hiding something. Blaine, on the other hand, was the most annoying type of chipper because he was a _genuinely_ happy kind of guy.

And Puck would much rather deal with stupid or fake chipper. He kind of hated the real thing right now.

“How was your break?” Blaine asked.

Puck shrugged and kept walking. He sighed when Blaine fell into step with him.

“Kurt told me about all the presents you gave Rachel,” Blaine continued. Either he was oblivious to Puck’s mood or he just didn’t give a shit. Knowing Blaine, it was most likely the second one. “That was really nice, Puck. I can’t believe none of us ever thought of that before. Rachel’s always walking around in the craziest outfits, and we all just sort of gave up on nudging her away from her sexy-grandma image that we just completely disregarded her winter attire.”

The both of them stopped and turned to each other.

Puck’s face clearly said, _Ninety-eight percent of what you just said passed right over my head because I don’t give a flying fuck about what you’re talking about. So go away._

Blaine’s face said, _I don’t care if you think I’m annoying. I will talk to you purely because you’re not talking back, and I won’t stop until you finally respond._

Puck cocked an eyebrow: _You really wanna do this? I’m, like, the king of nonverbal communication._

Blaine’s smile widened to show a little teeth: _Two can play that game._

Puck glared at him and continued walking, his boots crunching against the snow of the sidewalk. Warbler was _relentless_.

Blaine blew on his hands to warm them before shoving them into his pockets, almost mirroring Puck. “So, I always wanted to ask you about ‘Pretending.’ Was Rachel really the object of that song, or was it completely unintentional?”

Puck glanced down as Blaine stepped right up to him. He’d intended on going right to the bakery to get one of those bear claws—delicious bastards—but this little curly-haired... _person_ would not move, so he turned in the opposite direction, turned the corner, and started heading for the 7-11.

“I’m going to take your silence as assent that it was unintentional, but your subconscious knew exactly where the words were being aimed,” Blaine continued.

Him and Sam. Those two could carry on conversations with fucking _walls_ ; they cannot shut the fuck up.

“Have you written any other songs? I’m sure Schue would definitely let you perform them during regionals. We kicked ass at sectionals, but we really do need to switch things up. Sure, Rory and I are good additions, but we need a lot more variety. What I liked about sectionals last year was that we heard from these completely out-of-nowhere singers like Santana. It was amazing. Rachel and Finn are...overplayed, and I’m not saying that out of bias. There are _so_ _many_ combinations of singers that we could use. We’d totally blow the competition out of the water. Schue keeps saying fresh and new, but notice that we still keep coming back to the same people.”

Dude sounds like he’d been with the club since the very beginning. Damn.

“Rachel is a major driving force of this club, and I do admit that we need her. She’s a wall of sound, in and of herself, but she needs the right partner.”

Oh, _Christ_. Here we go with this spiel.

He didn’t _need_ to hear it. He didn’t _want_ to hear it. He was _not_ _going_ to hear it. He didn’t even want his thoughts _infected_ by it.

Puck pushed into the store before Blaine could even open his mouth again and just started grabbing shit off the shelves, barely even registering that he got a bag of cotton candy—and he _hated_ cotton candy. Every time he heard a snippet of Blaine’s voice, he rumpled and ruffled the packages to drown him out.

Until he smacked into one of the hockey players, knocking the guy back onto the freezer doors.

Puck was about to open his mouth to apologize or something, but then the hockey player—whose name his brain refuses to remember—shoved him backward into a rack.

“Watch it, asswipe!” the guy growled.

Three other hockey players came out from the aisles, followed by their idiot ringleader—whose name once again completely escaped Puck (probably because grimacing at that ugly-ass mullet took precedence over remembering anything else about that guy.)

“Hey, Puckerman,” Ugly-Ass Mullet said, sneering. “What are you doing starting fights? I thought you were still on probation.”

“Hey, let’s all just relax,” Blaine said calmly, trying to step in between Puck and the Hockey Idiots. “It was just an accident.”

“Your conniption was an accident, fag!” Hockey Idiot #1, the one Puck smacked into, barked angrily.

Puck scoffed. “It’s _conception_ , dumbass. You shouldn’t insult people with big words you don’t have the brain capacity to use.”

“You think you can hide behind a couple of big words, Puckerman?” Ugly-Ass Mullet asked tauntingly. “You can hide behind your dictionary, but you’re always gonna be a Lima Loser inside and out.”

Puck was already pissed. He _barely_ needed a reason to start fucking some people up. He set all the bags on the shelf behind him haphazardly as he took a step toward all five Hockey Idiots with an expression that made them take a nervous step back.

“Don’t _start_ nothing,” he growled menacingly. “Won’t _be_ nothing.”

“Just walk away, guys,” Blaine said warningly, grabbing a fistful of the back of Puck’s jacket.

“Walk away?” Hockey Idiot #2 laughed. “There are five of us and two of you.”

“Glad you could count, fuck-up,” Puck hissed, taking another step forward.

“Puck—”

Puck wrenched himself away from the Warbler’s grip. “No, shut up, Anderson. I’ve been keeping a low profile long enough.”

“Tired of being caged, puss—”

Puck didn’t let Ugly-Mullet get to the last syllable.

Berry wasn’t the only one with ninja skills.

He grabbed Mullet by the front of his sweater, dragged him out through the entrance, and threw him into the dark alley next to the store so fast none of the other Hockey Idiots had time to react.

“You’re gonna pay for this, Fuckerman!” Mullet shrieked—legit _shrieked_ like a little girl.

He jumped to his feet, but before his fist could collide with Puck’s face, another fist came out of nowhere and slammed into Mullet’s face, sending the moron careening into the wall of the store and collapsing onto the sidewalk, whimpering like a baby.

“Clay Aiken’s looking for a fight!” Hockey Idiot #4 crowed.

Puck stared down at the ninja-Warbler who was sporting a cut on his right knuckles. Blaine didn’t look back at Puck as the Idiots formed a small circle around the two of them. Props to the little dude because Warbler looked like he was out for blood.

“Looks like a quarter of the homo freakshow’s been holding out on us, boys,” Hockey Idiot #1 said.

Quarter?

Oh.

Brittana and Klaine.

Son of a bitch.

Puck’s upper lip curled into a sneer as he glared at these motherfuckers. He was itching to start tearing them apart, but one of them had to throw the first punch—like Mullet.

And when Blaine opened his mouth again, he solidified his standing as a fellow badass. “I haven’t been the only one holding out. I’ve seen the way you check out my ass when I walk down the hallway. Come and get it, fucker.”

Hockey Idiot #1 turned beet-red and lunged.

Then all hell broke loose.

Truthfully, Puck couldn’t tell you what the hell happened. It was all this one massive blur, but he could tell you one thing with 100% certainty: Blaine Fucking Anderson had been hiding this kickass, legendary beast mode that was like Mario getting a power star.

He legit _threw a hockey player over his shoulder_ and s _imultaneously kicked another in the chest_. How the hell he managed to do that, Puck would never know. He blamed it on adrenaline and a lot of misplaced aggression, but whatever the hell it was, it was fucking awesome.

But they were still two against five (once Mullet finally managed to man the fuck up and get in on the fight). Blaine was backed into the alley by Idiots #2, 3, and 4 while Mullet punched Puck in the face and Idiot #1 threw him backwards into some dude who had the misfortune of walking past.

“Karofsky!” Idiot #1 yelled gleefully.

Puck turned to the guy he landed on and then watched Karofsky glance back and forth between him and the hockey players. After the Zombie Halftime Show and the shit with the Bully Whips, he and the gleeks had come to a stable relationship—which meant there _wasn’t_ a relationship at all.

But, you know, there was hope of some maturity, so Puck wasn’t all that naïve in thinking that maybe— _just maybe—_ Karofsky would walk away. But Noah Puckerman also wasn’t a dumbass. He was familiar with Karofsky’s current predicament (hell, yeah, just got the wind knocked outta him, and he _still_ knew big words!), and if he was faced with helping two losers or helping four idiots, Puck would’ve chosen the force with the bigger number too.

With a heavy sigh, Puck watched as Karofsky pinned him to the sidewalk and pulled back a fist to punch him in the face. Puck,  of course, dodged and let Karofsky punch the sidewalk. There was an audible _crack_ too, and that _definitely_ wasn’t the sidewalk cracking.

Puck shoved his teammate off with a muttered “ _numbnuts_ ” and turned his fury onto Mullet and Idiot #1. Okay, no more dicking around. He punched Mullet right in the middle of the face, and then kicked #1 in the balls. And then kicked Mullet too, just for good measure. Blaine strolled out of the alley with a cut above his eye and a split lip, but he was intact.

Then Puck turned to Karofsky who was clutching his broken hand to his chest. Puck bent and hauled him to his feet before slamming him up against the brick wall.

“Give me one good reason to not waste my energy in giving you a concussion,” Puck said, deathly calm.

“Come on, dude!” Karofsky cried. “They would never let me walk away, and they’d kick my ass if I sided with you!”

“Are you a fucking idiot?!” Puck demanded. “Do you not see who is lying on the ground right now?!”

“You gotta understand—”

And then Puck voiced what he’d been thinking for a long time. “You’re gay, aren’t you?”

“WHAT?!” Karofsky yelled. He turned and glared at Blaine. “You _told_?!”

“I’m not an idiot, motherfucker!” Puck bared, slamming Karofsky against the wall again. “You check out Sam’s ass every time you think no one’s looking! Christ!”

“I-I—”

“Yeah, _exactly_ ,” Puck growled. “Look, I know you got your issues, but don’t fucking side with those bitches. Why don’t you fucking stick with the people who’d _back_ you up instead of _fuck_ you up?!”

“It’s not that easy!” Karofsky shot back.

“No one said it was,” Blaine pointed out coldly. “But at least you wouldn’t be alone.”

“Forget it!” the dumbass spat. “I made my peace with Kurt, but this is _my_ problem!”

Puck let him go and backed off. He wasn’t gonna waste any energy being semi-nice to this douchetard.

Karofsky glared at Puck for a second before dropping his eyes and glaring at the snowy cement. Puck turned and was about to walk off with Blaine, but he caught a movement from the corner of his eye and then heard a sickening crack.

“That’s for turning against us,” Blaine hissed as Karofsky held his uninjured hand up to his newly-broken nose. “So much for those Bully Whips, asshole.”

Puck smirked at the Warbler as they walked off. “Why do stupid shit happen to us at seven-eleven?”

Blaine shrugged. “It’s a sign from God saying we shouldn’t go to that store together anymore.”

_“NOAH?!”_

Oh, fucking hell.

He and Blaine slowly turned to see Berry, her arm linked with Satan’s, frozen on the other side of the street. He vaguely took note of the fact that she was wearing _his_ jeans, _his_ hat, and _his_ boots, but he was mostly too distracted by the smug smirk on Satan’s face.

He turned to Blaine and glared at the too-innocent expression on his face.

Goddamn.

“Noah! You’re bleeding!” Berry screeched as she sprinted across the street and got right up in his space to examine his bloody nose, his bloody forehead, and the black eye that was probably turning a nice shade of purple now.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he insisted as Satan sauntered over and briefly linked pinkies with Warbler.

Fucktards.

Blaine blocking him on the street, almost _herding_ him toward 7-11. Blaine jumping the gun and punching Mullet in the face (what the fuck is that kid’s name anyway?). Blaine pulling these kickass skillz out of fucking nowhere.

Fucking Santana. He should’ve known.

**~oOo~**

So they ended up at Satan’s house (since it was closest and oh-so-fucking convenient), and Berry was practically straddling his lap as she tried to bandage the huge fucking gash on Puck’s forehead that he could not, for the life of him, remember getting.

“You’re fortunate the clerk at seven-eleven didn’t call the cops, Noah,” she said, her face _way_ too close to his.

“Trey’s always stoned out of his mind,” Puck mumbled. “The fucking Apocalypse could be happening, and he’d still be sitting there.”

“Noah, language.”

“Come on, Berry. Quit bitching.”

She stopped and glared at him. “Why are you so mad at me?”

He glared at her, which was kind of hard considering their position—which had been Satan’s suggestion, of course. (“Berry, you can’t bandage him like that. Christ, there’s like a mile between you. Just get in there, damn it!”)

“I’m not mad at you,” he said tonelessly.

She shot him a longsuffering look. “Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Ye—”

“No.”

“I can te—”

“No, you can’t.”

“Stop int—”

“Then stop accusing me of being mad.”

“But you—”

“I’m _not_.”

“Noah, you can’t fool—”

“Yes, I can.”

“NOAH—”

“BERRY!”

“Look, I’m sorry for—”

“You don’t need to be apologizing for fucking anything.”

“Yes, I—”

“For fuck’s sake, Berry, no you don’t. You’ve got a fucking boyfriend. My name’s off the waiting list. You can chill the fuck out.”

“Wait, what—”

“Puck! Hey, dude, are you—”

OH, FUCKING HELL.

Berry jumped off his lap so fucking fast that for a second, he thought she teleported. It was just in time, though, because Finn walked into the living room and grimaced.

“You look like crap. What happened?” Finn asked.

“M’fine,” Puck grumbled. “What are you doing here?”

“Santana called me and said you and Blaine got in a fight,” Finn answered. “Kurt made me drive at a hundred miles per hour.”

Satan. That fucking shit disturber.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!” Puck, Berry, and Finn heard Kurt’s shriek from upstairs where Satan was treating Blaine. “YOU COULD HAVE DIED!”

“Well, as much fun as that’s gonna be to listen to, I gotta go,” Puck said, pushing himself off the chair. “I meant to get something to eat five fucking hours ago, and now I’m, like, eight times hungrier than I was before.”

Berry handed him the ice pack, and he nodded at her once before punching Finn’s shoulder and hauling ass. If he hadn’t jogged out of the house so fast, he would’ve seen that Finn turned to Berry and then said, “I saw where you were sitting.”

**~oOo~**

After their fucking _painful_ attempt to put Operation Thundering Blitzkrieg of Jewish Puckleberry back on track, Puck managed to completely avoid Satan, Warbler, and Hummel, but Pierce wouldn’t stop showing up at his house to harass him and bring him package after package of Sour Patch Kids. And he couldn’t really avoid Evans since the dimwit lived with him, so he was still getting his daily dose of “So how are you and Rachel?” But it wasn’t so bad because Puck could threaten sprinkling the guest bed with itching powder, so he could deal with Sam. There were only a couple more days left of winter break, though, and as soon as school started up again, the gleeks who were in on Brittany’s plan would renew their harassment, so Puck was trying to make the most of it with Sam, Bekah, and a Justice League marathon.

But they’d only gotten through a grand total of four episodes within five hours because they would keep pausing the DVD to have these massive debates over the dumbest things, but the issue they were currently all bitching about hit closer to home than Puck would like admitting. He could tell Sam knew what was going on too, but Puck refused to acknowledge it.

“No, Bekah! Superman has Lois Lane!” Sam argued.

“Well, Batman has Rachel Dawes!” Bekah shot back, running her hands through her hair in frustration much like Puck did.

Puck himself threw his hands up. “Rachel Dawes is _dead_!”

“So… _Catwoman,_ then!” Bekah cried desperately, totally outnumbered by her official and unofficial brothers.

“Catwoman’s too high maintenance! _And_ she’s a ho!” Sam retorted.

“But Wonder Woman is, like, all light and pretty and awesome!” Bekah listed, intent on keeping her hero from a creeper who associated himself with _bats_. “She wouldn’t go for someone all dark and moody like Batman.”

Sam watched something shift in Puck’s expression as the big brother set his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with a dark, serious expression, almost mirroring Bruce Wayne’s face which was frozen on the TV screen.

He was bringing out the big guns.

“Kid, Batman is badass.”

All three of them stared each other down for a few seconds before Bekah nodded solemnly. “Batman and Wonder Woman for the win.”

Sam whooped victoriously and threw his arms up in the air while Puck grinned evilly and grabbed Bekah, hauling her over his shoulder and standing up to spin her around.

“NOAH!” she squealed, pounding her brother’s back.

“Who’s the genius of the family?!” Puck roared, spinning around. “Who’s the genius?!”

“YOU! YOU ARE! NOW PUT ME DOWN!” she shrieked. “I’M GONNA THROW UP ON YOUR BUTT! SAM, HELP ME! YOU TWO ARE NINCOMPOOPS!”

Sam just grinned and sat on the armchair, letting the two Puckermans fight amongst themselves. Puck spun her around one more time and then tossed her onto the couch. She learned that word from Berry. Puck was sure of it.

The doorbell suddenly rang as Bekah chucked a pillow at his face. “Go get the door, _genius_! Let me watch my Justice League in peace!”

Puck threw the pillow back at his sister, whacking her solidly in the face and making her shriek again. He sprinted out of the living room just as she made a grab for the random-ass giant atlas on the coffee table in front of her.

Still chuckling, he pulled open the door, and then his smile vanished.

Oh, _God_ , he’d already been in a fight three fucking days ago. Once a week was more than enough.

“Hey, dude. What’s up?” Puck asked calmly, mentally bracing himself to deal with either a broken nose or a concussion.

Finn stared back at him with this barely-contained furious expression, and Puck knew this could only end in blood. He saw the tick in Finn’s jaw, the hunched shoulders, the clenched fists—he was _totally_ gonna get in another fight. He wished he could call to Sam and make a bet, but…yeah. Not gonna happen.

“Are you and Rachel going behind my back?”


	9. Finnocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear some things up, I am a sadistic kind of person. I like prolonging shit, but even I have to admit that this has taken damn-near forever, so y'all saying to speed shit up, calm down. Your shit's on it's way. =D Second, Rachel gave Sam three gifts (the two encyclopedias and the hat) because it's Rachel. She saw stuff that reminded her of Sam and thought he would appreciate them, so she bought it for him. She's a little crazy, but she's nice. They flirted because 1) Sam wasn't BFF's with Puck yet, and 2) it was my nod to Evanberry. And finally, I had to have Rachel lose it to Finn because...well, it worked with what I was gonna do in this chapter, and I wanted a little angst to play with. I try to keep the story as close to canon as I can while editing out the stupid shit the writers come up with.

There are times in people’s lives when they can consciously step back, pull themselves out of reality and stop time long enough to think:

“Man, this _really_ sucks. How did I get into this situation? More importantly, how do I get _out_ of this situation?”

Run away?

No. Finn was blocking the entrance with his behemoth body.

Grab the potted fern and whack him in the face?

Aside from inflicting unnecessary damage to Norman (the fern) and thereby breaking his sister’s heart, a pre-emptive strike may not be the best course of action in this particular situation.

Call Sam and Bekah for backup since Finn would never attack with Bekah around because he thought of her as his own unofficial baby sister?

No. Not only would Puck look like an absolute pussy hiding behind Bekah, he wasn’t gonna drag his best friend and sister down on the sinking ship he and Finn were strapped to.

Tell the truth and pray to God that Finn would hold on to the last vestiges of holiday cheer and walk off?

Oh, God.

Puck internally sighed and pressed the mental play button.

“No,” Puck answered truthfully.

“Bullshit.”

Keeping a firm grip on the door just in case he had to quickly use it as a shield against Finn, Puck sighed. “If you’re gonna accuse me of lying, what was the point of asking?”

“I wanted to give you a chance to come clean,” Finn answered coldly.

“About _what_? There are a thousand things I can come clean to, but cheating with Berry is not one of them,” Puck said, trying to keep his tone reasonable and calm.

“You’re not fooling anyone!” Finn shot back. “I saw where she was sitting in Santana’s living room a few days ago. I saw the way you looked at her when you were singing a friggin’ _Backstreet Boys song_ to her! You’re in love with her!”

Stay cool, Puck. Stay calm.

He motioned for Finn to back up as he came out onto the porch and shut the door behind him. It was fucking cold as shit outside, but this conversation needed to happen, like, two years ago, and he didn’t want Bekah hearing about his fuck-ups from this guy. “Finn—”

“What happened to us, dude?!” Finn demanded with this defeated expression. “Ever since I joined glee, you’ve been desperate to one-up me! With Quinn, with Rachel, with solos, with freakin’ _Homecoming King_!”

“Okay, okay, back up,” Puck said, holding up his index finger. “I’m not trying to steal the solos from you. When have I _ever_ tried stealing solos from you? Berry’s paranoia is rubbing off. And Homecoming King was all on Zises. It was either _run_ with her or be _run over_ by her. And I rigged it so I wouldn’t win anyway. No BAMF wins that shit. It’s stupid.”

“But you admit to everything else?!”

Puck sighed. “I’ll admit that with Quinn, but, dude, Berry was mine first.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Finn insisted. “That relationship was a sham!”

“I still dated her before you.”

“You knocked up Quinn while I was dating her. That ranks higher on the Bro-Code Fuck-Ups, Puck.”

“Look, you have her now!” Puck barked. “What do you keep bitching about?”

“You’re trying to seduce her away from me!” Finn, you stubborn-ass little bitch.

“I am _not_ trying to steal her away from you! We are _not_ going behind your back! Yes, okay, I fucking like her, but you won! Go get some cream for your herpes flare-up because there is nothing going on with me and Berry.”

“She’s pulling away from me,” Finn said quietly. “I can feel it. Her dads are being nicer to me than she is.”

“She’s just distracted because of her shit with NYADA,” Puck said.

Finn scowled at him. “And the fact that you know that doesn’t really help with your whole I’m-not-cheating-with-Rachel _argument_.”

Puck threw his hands up. “We’re _friends_! If you’d pay attention once in a while, you’d see that she’s kind of freaking out about it. In between her ranting about regionals and Jesse coaching Vocal Adrenaline and all that other shit, she’s worried that even though she’s the shit in Lima, she’s just a number in New York.”

Finn gave him this weird look and then glared at him. “I listen to what she says, jackass. I’m not an idiot. She doesn’t talk to me about that. Even if you’re not fucking her behind my back, you’re cheating— _emotionally_.”

Puck closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “Hudson, you are tap-dancing on my last nerve. For the last time, I am not cheating with Berry. That is the last time I’m gonna say it, and you throw that at me one more time, I’m getting back in the house ‘cause you accusing me of this shit is not worth freezing my ass off.”

Finn suddenly grabbed his shoulder, and Puck immediately responded with a glare.

“Look me in the eyes,” Finn said. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re not going behind my back.”

Puck stepped right up to Finn’s face. “Berry. Is. Not. Cheating. On. You.”

Then he shrugged out of Finn’s hold and wrenched open his door. “You won, dude. You got her. I’m out. You got nothing to worry about.”

“For as long as you two are even _barely_ friends, there’s always gonna be something to worry about,” Finn said simply.

Puck scoffed, remembering the exact words he hated, wanted to take back, and never ever say again. But he did. “We were never be friends to begin with.”

Finn frowned, confused at Puck’s tone and expression. “What?”

Puck turned back and gave him a pointed look before shaking his head and stepping into the house.

“Always thought it’d be me,” he muttered and then _finally_ lied to his ex-friend, “but secretly hoped it’d be you.”

Puck shut the door and leaned against it until he heard Finn’s car pull away.

Two seconds. Two seconds from the grating sound of tires moving off the driveway and onto the road. Two seconds to make four things sink in:

1) Finn won.

2) Finn let her go, but he did the one thing Puck didn’t: fight to get her back. Granted, Puck was a little busy doing other shit, but what-the-fuck-ever.

3) Berry was happy with Finn. Okay, sure, her first time was apparently fucking awkward and, from what Santana told him, she had to fake her orgasm, but she stayed with him. She still wore that goddamn useless necklace. She was _happy_. Which led to...

4) Who was he to fuck up another relationship?

Then he spun and punched a hole in the wall.

“MOTHERFUCKER!”

Sam and Bekah ran into the foyer to see Puck, his knuckles and the wall both smeared with blood.

Bekah rushed off to the kitchen to grab the first aid kit. Sam took a step forward.

“Puck—”

“Not. A. Word,” Puck rasped. Then he walked past Sam and headed up the stairs so calmly that no one would ever guess what had happened. The only sign that he wasn’t all right was the small trail of blood he left behind before he had the presence of mind to wrap the hem of his shirt around his hand.

Sam sighed.

He pulled out his phone as a silently-crying Bekah trudged up the stairs with a big plastic first-aid kit.

_To: Group: TBJP Operatives  
Mission abort. Smthng bad happened wit Puck  & Finn. No more meddling._

**~oOo~**

_From: +15677224352  
Noah, how are you feeling?_

**~oOo~**

_From: +15677224352  
NOAH?! You didn’t pass out, did you?! I hope you don’t have a concussion! Wake up! Noah! Wake up!_

**~oOo~**

_From: Satan  
Fuckerman, in case u deleted her off ur fon, u big ass drama queen, the random # txting u is Berry. ANSWER HER._

**~oOo~**

_From: +15677224352  
(1/2) Noah, I’ve given you twelve hours to respond, and you still haven’t done so. Either you’re dead or you’re avoiding me, and since Sam has reported that _

_(2/2) there will not be a funeral in the near future, I feel safe in pleading that you stop ignoring my texts and tell me what’s wrong._

**~oOo~**

_From: Satan  
Cabron. Dnt make me use the brass knuckles EvanTwins gave u 4 XMas. Fucking respond 2 Berry. She wnt leave me alone._

**~oOo~**

_From: +15677224352  
It’s been 3 days. Please respond to me, Noah. Why are you mad at me?_

**~oOo~**

_From: +15677224352  
These earmuffs are really quite comfortable. I expected them to be slightly detrimental to my hearing, but everything’s operating at full capacity._

**~oOo~**

_From: +15677224352  
Nooooooaaaaahhhhhhhh. Please respond._

**~oOo~**

“Yes, I have now graduated to leaving you voicemails, and because your phone rang and did not go straight to voicemail, I am correct in assuming that your phone is indeed turned on and you are seeing my text messages which leaves me to assume that you are ignoring me and are therefore mad at me. Since I happen to be the person at which your animosity is directed against, I have the right to know what it is that I’ve done to offend you... Noah, why are you mad at me?”

**~oOo~**

“Would you like me to sing you a song? I can do it, you know. I believe there is an adequate amount of time in a voicemail to express my emotions in a small section of a song.”

**~oOo~**

_“Boy, if only I knew what I’ve done. You know. So why don’t you tell me? And I, I would bring down the moon and sun to show how much I care. Don’t wanna lose you now. Baby, I know we can win this. Don’t wanna lose you now. No, no. Or ever again.”_

**~oOo~**

“Perhaps that may not have been the b-best choice of song...P-Please just d-disregard that. Um...yes. All right.”

**~oOo~**

“Noah, I came to your house. In case you didn’t hear me yelling at you from the bottom of your staircase, where your sister vehemently prohibited me from going any further, _why are you mad at me_?”

**~oOo~**

“I think we both know what’s coming tomorrow, Puckerman. Tomorrow, be prepared to be thoroughly admonished for your current behavior. I have asked Santana, Sam, Blaine, and even your sister, but none of them can even give me a semblance of an answer because it seems that you’ve hidden away in your room like a hermit who’s taken a vow of silence. So here is your warning, Noah Puckerman. Be prepared. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

**~oOo~**

It could be explained in lengthy, detailed paragraphs the way Puck avoided Berry the following day at school. But the simple explanation was:

Berry wasn’t the only one in Lima with some epic skills. Puck went _super_ -ninja on her ass.

And you’d think it’d be easy to spot a guy with a Mohawk, but no. It actually isn’t. When you add up a badass motherfucker, some legendary ninja skills, and a serious motivation to stay the fuck away from someone, you get one hell of a ghost.

**~oOo~**

_From: +15677224352  
I thought we were friends._

**~oOo~**

Berry didn’t see him until glee on Tuesday, and even then, he somehow managed to creep in so that she didn’t even notice he was in the far back corner—the polar opposite of where she was seated with Finn—until Schue walked in and welcomed “the whole gang” back. She’d spun around and jumped when she spotted him as if he’d frickin’ _Apparated_ into the room half a second ago.

“Regionals!” Schue announced, clapping his hands and grinning like an idiot.

“Mr. Schue, I have a _lot_ of ideas for this,” Berry began, surging out of her seat to face the rest of the gleeks.

Mercedes sighed and sent up a prayer to the ceiling. Quinn rolled her eyes and scoffed. But Santana was smirking evilly, and Puck saw it all from his vantage point. He didn’t like it one bit.

“In light of recent events, I have offered to step down from taking lead in a group number, and while I am still trying to reconcile myself to letting someone else take over, I implore you all to keep me as lead in a ballad.”

Oh.

Mercedes’s eyebrow went up, and a smile blossomed on her face. Quinn looked slightly impressed. Santana...well, her evil look went straight into Maleficent Mode. She stood up and swayed her hips as she moved to stand on Schue’s other side.

She turned and addressed the gleeks. “Who remembers regionals twenty-ten?”

“Epic numbers, epic defeat,” Artie mumbled sadly, and Chang-Squared solemnly nodded in agreement.

“Who remembers nationals twenty-eleven?” she asked again.

“Can we just _not_ bring that up, _please_?” Kurt sighed.

Santana smiled sweetly. “And who can tell me what both those performances had in common?”

Either no one seemed inclined to play along or they genuinely had no clue... Except for Brittany, apparently, whose hand shot up.

Santana pointed and smiled wider. “Brit-Brit.”

“Finchel duet!”

Puck had to give the boy props ‘cause Finn caught on _quick_. He could see the visible shift in Frankenteen’s demeanor. (Man, the wonders of paying attention.)

“What are you trying to say?” Finn demanded.

Tsk. Wrong question.

“I’m saying that you two paired together is a common denominator when we’re _losing_ , Jet Puff,” Santana answered bluntly. “We won sectionals in oh-nine and regionals last year because my girl the Berry Crusher over here kicked some serious ass with her solos. And of course, we tied in sectionals last year because my kickass solo managed to hike our points up, no thanks to the wow-less performance of Barbie and Ken—”

“HEY!” Sam protested.

“We sounded amazing!” Quinn argued.

“I liked your mash-up with Rachel a lot more,” Tina said. “‘I Feel Pretty-Unpretty’ was epic.”

“And ‘Lucky’ was adorable,” Brittany pitched in.

“But your shit ain’t good enough to be set on a stage. I gots no goosebumps,” Santana finished before going back to her original point. “So we ended up tying with mediocrity—sorry, cutie.”

Blaine shrugged. “It’s all good.”

“—so this time we need some serious switch-ups. We established that Finchel duets _suck_ , but Berry’s got the emotion shit hands-down. So we still need her for the ballad, obviously.”

“But everything else needs to be shuffled around,” Quinn said. “Who’ll be singing lead in the group number? Is Man— _Rachel_ gonna sing another solo or is she gonna duet with someone else?”

“I’m the _male_ _lead_ ,” Finn said pointedly.

“Calm those mallow-y tits, Finnderella. You’ll still get a solo in the group number,” Santana said, rolling her eyes before zeroing in on Finn with an evil, knowing smirk. “But we’ll give you a better chance if you can write us another song.”

Berry brightened and smiled at him encouragingly, but Finn blanched and sat back in his seat.

Santana hummed, satisfied. “So we all in agreement, here, _mis_ _siervos_?”

They all nodded.

“So the group number will be a lot like ‘Light Up the World’?” Rory asked. “Everyone we never heard from before was showcased, even if it was for only a line or two—Artie, Tina, Brittany.”

“But now we have Mike, Blaine, and Rory to throw into the mix,” Rachel added excitedly.

“So if you don’t want me and Rachel doing duets,” Finn persisted, still hung up on the fact that he got thrown into the backseat, “who’s gonna do it?”

“Sam?” Mike volunteered his friend.

“Out of the guys, Artie’s got the most powerful voice,” Quinn said. Artie turned to smile at her brightly, and she returned a genuine one.

“Blaine would be _epic_ ,” Kurt sighed dreamily. “And we’ve all heard them duet.”

“We’ve all heard Rachel and Puck do a duet,” Brittany offered innocently. “Two hot Jews makes for great music.”

Puck’s blank expression quickly darkened, and it got even darker when he saw Finn glancing back and forth between Santana’s smirk, Berry’s calculating expression, and Schue’s wide smile.

“Puckleberry,” Santana drawled. “Me gusta.”

“They’ve got chemistry,” Blaine said, nodding.

Sam rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Almost, if not _more_ than Finchel, I think.”

“I think it’s the bad-boy-and-good-girl dynamic that really pumps up the intensity,” Tina pointed out. “The whole opposite-but-not-really thing works for them.”

“The one with two fathers and the one with none,” Kurt mused. “The one who wants everything and the one who wants nothing. The pacifist and the bully. The—”

“Girl and the boy! Okay, we get the point!” Puck snapped.

Shit disturbers, the lot of ‘em.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Schue said.

“I don’t,” Puck said.

No one could miss the hurt on Rachel’s face. “Why not?”

Puck thought hard and pulled it out of his ass: “It’s trite. It’s been done.”

“No, _Finchel_ has been done—that sweet, happily-ever-after shit isn’t working,” Santana said. “‘Pretending’ needed more emotion, you needed to feel the conflict along with the pain. Hudson’s too much of a golden boy to emote that shit.”

“And so because I’m a fucked-up guy, I’m the best candidate for the job?!” Puck demanded.

“Why are you so against this, Puck?” Schue asked worriedly. “It’s just a role we’d ask you to play. You fit the role, and so we’re asking you to do it.”

“Well, I don’t want to,” Puck said bluntly.

Everyone just sort of sat there, not really knowing or understanding what the hell just happened.

Schue was more than eager to change the subject even though Puck _knew_ he was gonna get called to his office afterward. “Well, we’ve still got some time before regionals, so we don’t really have to worry much about this. But to sort of build a more diverse foundation, I have decided to host a talent showcase. Do whatever you do best so we can employ your talents during regionals and even nationals so we can really build up our repertoire.”

“Well, this is a _singing_ club, Mr. Schue. What most of us do is _sing_ ,” Tina pointed out. “We’re not gonna be able to compete against the divas, out-dance Mike or Brittany, or play an instrument like Puck, Finn, or Artie.”

“Guys, guys, this isn’t a competition,” Schue insisted. “This is a _showcase_. _You_ show off _yourself_.”

“B’s good at Broadway, so she gon’ do Broadway,” Santana said, shrugging. “Finnessa’s all about oldies rock, so he gon’ do oldies rock. You can sing _Mulan_ and kick ass at it, so chills.”

Everyone sat in shock... _again_. That was the nicest, and most encouraging thing any of them had ever heard Santana say. Bitch was just full of surprises all of a sudden.

Schue grinned as Berry laughed (Puck twitched) and dragged Santana back to their seats. For now, things were fine.

**~oOo~**

“ _What_?! No, it’s _not_ fine!” Brittany tied through a mouthful of chocolate chip cookies.

All the gleeks but Tina, Finn, Puck, and Rachel were still lounging on the seats on the risers about fifteen minutes after glee had ended—by Santana’s nonverbal order/glare. Quinn, Mercedes, and Artie had been oblivious to the command until Kurt held on to Quinn, Blaine tugged Mercedes back down, and Sam used his foot to block Artie from wheeling away (a bad idea since he just got his foot run over).

“We can’t push them together anymore!” Artie protested.

“True love can’t be forced,” Rory agreed.

“You’re all idiots,” Quinn muttered.

“Bitch, what are you still _doing_ here?!” Santana demanded.

Quinn glared. “You made me stay behind!”

“To offer you a chance to make it up to Puck by being _nice_ ,” Kurt said coldly. “Not to constantly shoot us down.”

“Why are _you_ helping?!” Quinn snapped, eyes flashing. “Finn is your stepbrother! Where’s your loyalty?”

Kurt rubbed his temple. “There are some relationships that are good for _each_ _other_ , and then there are others that are good for _everyone_. Finchel is neither of those. Both Finn and Rachel have talent and insecurities, but that’s essentially the extent of their similarities. They _don’t_ balance each other, and if they ever actually did, I never saw any signs of it. And personally? I’d rather not have one of my best friends dating my brother primarily because there are more than enough divas in the Hudson-Hummel home.”

“I thought she was over him when she sang ‘Jar of Hearts,’” Mercedes sighed. “But apparently not.” __

“And Finn’s intent on latching on to her,” Blaine said.

“And Rachel’s happy in her delusion of a happy ending,” Artie added.

“And Puck just straight-up surrendered,” Sam said.

“Are you _sure_ you didn’t hear what they were saying?” Mike asked. “Puck doesn’t just _give_ _up_ for nothing.”

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “They were fighting outside, so Bekah and I didn’t hear much of anything, but when Puck came back in, I heard him say, ‘Always thought it’d be me but secretly hoped it’d be you.’”

_“¡Ay, pendejo!”_

“Homeboy was high.”

“Why in the _hell_ did he just give up?” Mercedes demanded incredulously.

Sam shrugged, the official spokesperson for Noah Puckerman’s jacked-up mentality. “I guess he’s done wanting things he thinks he’ll never get.”

“So remind me _again_ why we are continuing to _meddle_?!” Quinn demanded. “If Rachel and Finn want to be together, then let them be together!”

Santana leveled a very dark glare at Quinn. “Bitch, don’t make me throw you out by your hair.”

“You want Finchel annihilated as much as the rest of us,” Artie pointed out. “No matter how they got together, you will _always_ be against it.”

“Finn’s screwed me over enough times, okay? I don’t want him back,” Quinn corrected him, sounding a little offended. “And I agree that Rachel adopts this whole new type of annoying when her and Finn are dating, and it gets on my nerves, yeah.”

“True dat,” Artie agreed.

“But you can’t change their minds,” Quinn continued. “You’re only going to alienate them from the club, and God knows we have enough stupid drama in our lives.”

And since Quinn was looking straight at Santana when she spoke, she was the first to see the evil spark in Satan’s eyes catch fire.

“For once, _gringa_ _loca_ , you’re right.”

“Oh, no,” Rory murmured worriedly, grimacing and making his already-squinty eyes even more squinty. “She’s got that look again.”

“What look?” Mercedes demanded worriedly. “ _What_ _look_?”

“The one that says she’s gonna come up with a scheme that’ll end up with someone nearly getting killed by a bunch of hockey players,” Blaine sighed. “I wasn’t even on Puck’s list, Santana.”

“You’ve been part of the gang for, like, a year,” Santana said, shrugging. “You count.”

And then Santana visibly flinched, cringing. “Goddamn Rachel Berry. Fucking rubbing off me in all the wrong fucking ways.”

Brittany grinned ecstatically and blew Santana a kiss.

“What the hell are you planning?!” Mercedes barked impatiently.

Brushing the angel (who resembled Berry with the _Run, Joey, Run_ wings, but instead of a white slip, she was wearing white, feathery lingerie) off her shoulder, Santana focused her thoughts again. “If we can’t actually break up Michelin Man and the Broadway Lawn Gnome, we’re gonna have to do things more subtly. We’re gonna have to work around it to convince them that they’re not meant to be together.”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do since the beginning?” Kurt deadpanned.

“No,” Blaine said, catching on to Santana’s plan with a grin, “we’ve been flat-out _telling_ them that they don’t belong together. What we need to do is plant the ideas in their heads.”

“Like a submachine message?” Brittany asked, her ponytail bouncing when she cocked her head to the side.

Rory frowned. “Sublimi—”

“Yeah, Brits!” Santana cut him off with a sharp look. “A submachine message.”

Brittany sat back, happy to have contributed. They were gonna rain down the mental propaganda, and Finchel would be none the wiser. Her metaphors were _brilliant_.

“How are we supposed to do that?” Mike asked.

“Yeah, it’s not like we can sit those two down in front of a screen and have them watch a spinning vortex,” Sam sighed.

Santana rolled her eyes. “Dumbass! We’re gonna have to do a shitload of field work. Berry’s gonna be our primary target since she over-thinks shit, and as long as we plant our seed of doubt in just the right spots, she’ll be the first to crumble. Finnocence is too dense to plant _anything_.”

Artie drummed his fingers on the binder on his lap. “So what do we do with Rachel?”

“Berry is easy,” Santana mused out loud as she paced back and forth in front of the gleeks. “She’s all about the fairytales and happily-ever-after’s, so we just have to drop _very_ subtle hints about how Finchel is anything _but_ fairytale.”

“How about we just sit her in front of a couple episodes of _Once Upon a Time_ or make her watch a Disney movie marathon?” Kurt sniped. “It’s not going to work. I _know_ Rachel.  It won’t work.”

Santana smirked. “Apparently, you _don’t_. Berry is so insecure about the most trivial dumbfuckery. We play off those insecurities, and she’ll be wringing her hands and freaking out and showing up on my doorstep at four in the fucking morning again. I guarantee it.”

Kurt still looked skeptical, but he knew better. Santana was evil, and her guarantees were, for all intents and purposes, set in stone.

“So what do we do about Finn?” Quinn asked.

“He’s not as dumb as you play him off to be anymore,” Mike pointed out. “He’s gotten pretty sharp after hanging out with Rachel, and he’s _obviously_ gotten a lot more territorial too.”

Santana pinched the bridge of her nose. “Bitch is tryin’ my life, I swear to God. He’s just itching for a slap in the face and a baseball bat to the balls.”

“What’s the plan?” Sam asked.

“We can’t do subtle with Finn ‘cause he’s too stupid and he probably wouldn’t be able to pick anything up. We can’t do obvious ‘cause he’ll bitch, and _el Señor y el Diablo_ know that my inner serial killer can’t deal with another one of those fits,” Santana grumbled, still pacing in frustration.

It was like her brain was hard-wired to stay the fuck away from this dickwad—even if it involved getting him the fuck out of her friend’s life. He was like fucking _oil_. Wouldn’t work with _anything_ in her mind.

“Leave him to me.”

All eyes swiveled to the door of the choir room which swung open to reveal Puck with one raised eyebrow.

“Dude, how long have you been standing there?” Sam asked, twitching a little.

“Long enough,” Puck replied blandly, striding into the room to grab his forgotten guitar off the stand.

 _“Well?!”_  Santana demanded impatiently.

“What do you want me to say?” Puck asked defensively. “I said I’d take care of Finn.”

“But what about the whole situation?” Kurt asked. “You _gave up_!”

“Yeah.”

Everyone gawked at him.

“What the _hell_?! Can you _explain_?!” Mercedes demanded. “You’re our only hope for a future with a more sane Rachel Berry!”

“You said you’d take care of him,” Mike protested. “How is that ‘giving up?’”

Puck shrugged and made his way  back to the door. “It’s me trying to help a kid I’ve known for eighteen years. It’s me trying to get this motherfucker’s head back on straight.”

“I don’t understand this anymore,” Rory muttered, shaking his head.

“It means, _idiots_ , that I give up on trying to get together with Berry. Y’all morons do what you want, but as far as I’m concerned, Finn is with her, and I ain’t fucking with that anymore.”

“But you said—”

“I _know_ what I said, Evans! I’d help Finn pull his shit together, but Finchel—if it even is actually meant to end—has gotta end naturally. I ain’t meddling, and you fuckers are better off doing the same.”

And Puck walked away, pointedly _not_ looking at Brittany.

Brittany, who looked like someone just gave her a hundred puppies, kitties, and bunnies…and then set them all on fire right in front of her eyes.

The door slammed shut behind him and Santana turned back to the gleeks with a fire in her eyes that freaked the ever-loving shit out of them all.

“Fuck Puckerman. Finchel’s goin’ down.”

**~oOo~**

Puck sighed and leaned against the corner of wall, trying not to imagine things _too_ _much_...

Shit. Too late.

This was gonna hurt.

He had no idea how his year was gonna go, but he sure as hell didn’t anticipate the amount of risks of pain and incarceration he’d be putting himself through.

And in all honesty, there probably was a less-painful way to get the same outcome, but Puck couldn’t really think of anything and his window of opportunity was about to slam shut right on his fingers. And the Lord knows how much Puck needs those fingers.

So he pushed off from the wall, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked out into the middle of the hall.

A couple of freshmen and sophomores cringed away and hauled ass to another section of the school that was far, far, _far_ away from the legendary badass juvenile delinquent who was currently striding down the hallway with the darkest expression they’d ever seen.

Usually Puck didn’t take this route purely because of the six dumbasses just standing around in the hallway, but today, he sucked it up. This was all part of the plan.

“Hey, Puckerman!” Hockey Idiot #2 called out, elbowing his buddies and pointing. “Where’s that little gay bodyguard of yours?”

“Lose your dignity much?” Hockey Idiot #4 jeered. “That’s almost as bad as you dating that Broadway chick. The hell were you thinking, dude?”

“Boys, boys!” Ugly-Mullet called, trying to calm down his underlings. “Chillax. We all know why Puckerman went out with Berry.”

Ugly-Mullet sneered, and Puck suddenly felt a lot more eager for this shit to go down.

“It’s ‘cause of that hot, tappable—”

He didn’t even finish the sentence before Puck’s chemistry book flew out of his hand _completely_ by accident when a freshman _accidentally_ ran into his arm.

Needless to say, all hell—actually, that was probably an understatement. All hell did not break loose.

It went straight-up _Armageddon_ up in that hallway. Okay, yeah, Finn immediately heard the ruckus and came to Puck’s defense before he got torn apart by the _entire_ hockey team.

But apparently _Rachel_ _Berry_ had been with Finn—Puck just couldn’t see her because her behemoth of a boyfriend was blocking her from view. And the girl had pipes like a dog whistle. As soon as she shrieked, Sam, Mike, Blaine, Santana, and Brittany bum-rushed in from the adjacent hallway, bringing along with them what looked like the entire football team.

Once again. _Not_ one of Puck’s more ingenious plans, _by_ _far_.

Probably the _only_ good that came out of it was that Karofsky managed to redeem himself, and as Coach Beiste was hauling a bloodied-up Puck away from the scene, he caught sight of a weary Karofsky and Blaine exchanging a compromising handshake.

Everything else was just _shit_.

**~oOo~**

Rachel sighed as she dabbed at the spot of blood on Sam’s shirt. “Do _you_ know what started Noah off?” ****

“No idea,” Sam answered, licking the blood off his lip. “Probably something that set off his hero complex.”

Rachel smiled. “His hero complex, Samuel?”

“He only gets in fights when someone he cares about gets threatened,” Sam replied, wincing when he accidentally brushed the bruise on his side with his elbow. “That’s what happened with Blaine.”

Rachel blinked and her smiled warmed considerably. “I know. Noah has more than just a gold streak. I’ve known for years.”

“I heard it was about you this time,” Sam said quietly, glancing up at her furtively.

Rachel stopped and straightened up from where she was concentrating on Sam’s shirt. “And where did you hear that?”

“A couple bystanders started muttering once Coach, Sue, Schue, Miss Corcoran, and the other teachers pulled everyone away. Apparently that kid with the mullet—what is his name anyway?”

“Irrelevant, Sam. Please continue.”

“Anyway, he was saying that you were the reason Puck lost all his dignity, but that the only reason why Puck would do it was ‘cause you were…”

Rachel glared. “I was _what_?”

“Tappable.”

Sam watched as she frowned.

“He faced an entire team of hockey players?” she asked. “For me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Without any backup whatsoever.”

“It’s _Puck_ , Rach.”

“Regardless, Sam. That was very foolhardy of him. In spite of the fact that he was valiantly defending my honor, I really wish he hadn’t,” she said quietly, dabbing at the stain on Sam’s shirt one more time before capping the Tide pen and backing away.

“But he _did_.”

“And it was fortunate that Finn was there to help him.”

“No, Rach, it was _you_ who screamed and alerted the troops.”

“Regardless,” Rachel insisted. “He shouldn’t have done something so dangerous. He could have been rearrested. He could have violated his probation. Even Finn is smart enough to know which fights to back away from.”

Sam chuckled. “Puck doesn’t pick his battles, Rach. He just ends up getting caught up in them. Like an actual hero. Like Jake Sully. He wasn’t going around looking for a fight, the fight just found him, and who was he to back down when people he cared about were being threatened?”

“Sam—”

“Just don’t be so hard on Puck. He’s a pretty messed-up guy, but he’s got his way of showing people he cares—even if he doesn’t say it out loud.”

Rachel looked pained. “Sam, please don’t try to convince me that I’m better off with Noah than with Finn.”

“I never said that, Rach,” Sam pointed out. “I’m just saying…you don’t hate on the army for fighting. Don’t hate on Puck for fighting. He’s got his reasons. This has got nothing to do with your screwed-up love triangle. Promise.”

And as Rachel walked away, Sam smirked when she looked over her shoulder uncertainly.

**~oOo~**

He was fucking lucky that he managed to get off with just a stern lecture from Figgins and Schue while the nurse tried to stop his nose from emptying out his body’s entire supply of blood.

“What the _fuck_ happened, dude?” Finn sighed, adjusting the ice pack against his jaw.

“Same ol’, same ol’,” Puck answered thickly, shifting uncomfortably on the second cot in the nurse’s office. “Hockey idiots being idiots and all that jazz.”

“What set you off?” Finn asked from the other cot.

Dumb and relentless. Not a fun combo.

“Don’t ask,” Puck sighed, knowing blunt evasiveness was the only way with this kid.

“Dude, you don’t just randomly start throwing punches anymore,” Finn pointed out, frowning. “If it’s something serious, we—”

Be calm, Puck. Be cool. “Hudson, just...don’t start, okay? You can’t boot me out of _my_ _friend’s_ life and expect you and me to be copacetic, okay? And don’t give me some spiel about being a team because we both know you’re only frontin’.”

Finn’s concerned expression shifted to anger. “You’re still my friend, Puck. You don’t have to be such a dick.”

Puck laughed scornfully. “You are _not_ my friend, dude. At the most, we’re like a fucking divorced married couple. We talk when it’s convenient or when social conventions call for it. Thanks for hauling that jackass off my shoulder, but don’t ask about my well-being unless you actually care. Okay? Okay.”

“Fuck you.”

Puck laughed, and then winced when it stretched out the cut on his cheek. “Grow the fuck up, Finn. Get your shit together. Quit worrying about everyone else, and for once, think about yourself and not what everyone thinks about you or what they expect of you.”

“Thanks, Oprah. Next time I want a lecture, I would’ve gone to Miss Pillsbury or, better yet, _Rachel_.”

Puck twitched, and he wasn’t sure if Finn threw that out there on purpose or not.

“What I’m trying to say, _Finnderella_ ,” Puck hissed, “is figure out your own goddamn life. You wanted football because it’s the only thing you thought you were good at. You wanted NYADA ‘cause you managed to grab and hold on to your lead in glee purely ‘cause Schue doesn’t have the heart or the brains to ask you to step down.”

“So what? That whole thing in glee was staged with Santana so she could push me off and shove you into the spotlight?!”

“Holy fuck. Did I say that? No, I didn’t. Christ on crackers, Hudson, quit putting shit in my mouth.”

“So what are you trying to say?!” Finn cried exasperatedly.

Puck groaned at the massive migraine that was seeping in between every lobe of his brain. “Dude! I’m trying to tell you to figure out what _you_ want.”

“That’s what I’ve been do—”

“ _Without_ any outside interference. What do _you_ like doing? I don’t give a shit what you’re _good_ at doing. What matters is whether or not you _like_ it.”

And Puck sighed in relief when Finn’s mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out.

**~oOo~**

“So, how are you and Blaine?” Rachel asked with a knowing smile, nudging Kurt in the side with her elbow.

Kurt blushed and dimpled as they turned the corner down the hallway. The blood from the fight yesterday had been mopped up, but the bleach stains were _so_ _obvious_ on the linoleum floor. It was slightly sickening.

But not sick enough to deter him from his mission. (Because there was no way he could fail. Because if he did, Santana would...)

He shivered and pushed all those thoughts out of his mind. It was like Megan Fox’s _Jennifer’s_ _Body_ in real-life applications.

“We’re _so_ good,” Kurt gushed. “I thought that we might get a little jaded after... _you_ _know_ , but no. The fireworks are still there as... _sparkly_ as ever.” __

 _Damn_ Brittany and her ludicrous script. _Sparkly_? Good Lord.

He caught the falter in Rachel’s face—a falter only _he_ could catch because she was _that_ _good_ of an actress, but not good enough to fool him. __

“How about you and Finn?” Kurt asked innocently. “How was your first time?”

“It was...a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Rachel answered, trying to make her sigh sound romantic and not disappointed.

Kurt squeezed her arm affectionately. “And the fireworks? Remember how you told me about that kissing booth incident where there weren’t any fireworks?”

She blanched but managed a split-second recovery. “It was just because he was still so hurt over me cheating on him with Noah. It temporarily numbed him to the sparks between us. _And_ he was so desperate to find something between Quinn and him.”

Kurt had to pinch himself to keep from rolling his eyes and groaning. “And so how is it now?”

Rachel grinned her famous Broadway show smile—the one every single gleeks (even Rory now) knew and hated—and Kurt sighed internally.

“Like supernovas.”

**~oOo~**

“Do you like playing ball?” Puck asked, punching Finn in face.  
   
“Well, yeah,” Finn answered, drop-kicking Puck.  
   
“Is it something you _really_ see yourself doing for the rest of your life?” Puck asked, delivering a scissor kick that sent Finn flying into a palm tree.

“Well, not anymore,” Finn grumbled, delivering an epic Bruce Lee punch that sent Puck crashing through the wall. “But even before Cooter, no, not really.”

“Do you like singing?” Puck asked, somersaulting through the air to grab Finn by the shoulders and throw him over Puck’s own head.

“Well, yeah, of course,” Finn answered, punching Puck so hard he popped up into the air.

“Do you see yourself on a stage or in a recording studio or in front of a camera?” Puck asked, executing a ninja-dash that caused Finn fall face-first into the water.

“No, I guess not,” Finn mumbled, throwing a quick succession of punches and kicks that made Puck go flying again.

“Well, what do you like doing that you see yourself doing in the future?” Puck asked, glancing at Finn’s almost-nonexistent health bar and pushing one button just to punch Finn in the face to land himself _another_ KO.

Finn grimaced and sighed, studying the controller in his hand. “I don’t know. Rachel tells me that I can do whatever I put my mind to, but I don’t know where to put my mind to in the first place.”

Puck wiped his hand down his face. “Well, what the fuck are you good at aside from singing and playing ball?”

“Apparently, I suck at both of those, so I don’t think it’s relevant anymore.”

“Dude, don’t make me hit you and declare that the only thing you’re good at is being a punching bag.”

Finn scowled. “I just don’t know, man.”

“For God’s sake, Finn, you’re the one who, like, _begged_ me to help you figure your shit out, but I can’t choose _for_ you, goddamnit,” Puck growled, exiting the tournament before another fight could start. “You got accepted into OSU. What the fuck are you gonna do there?”

“I don’t know! Maybe following Rachel to New York is a good idea. It’ll open me up to whatever other options are there.”

“It’s expensive up there, dude,” Puck reminded him. “You can’t just dick around and spend half your life trying to find your path and shit.”

“I could get a job as a waiter and get an apartment until I get my bearings and stuff.”

Puck sighed and ran a hand through his ‘hawk. “Bearings for _what_? What are you gonna _do_?”

“Weren’t you the one who was all, _‘It’s the journey, not the destina—_ ”

“Hudson, that was _Schue_.”

“Oh, right. But the point still stands!”

**~oOo~**

“Santana?”

“Berry, don’t answer the phone like you don’t know if it’s me or not. You’re the one who called in the first place.”

Rachel sighed and rubbed the skin between her eyebrows slowly. “Santana, can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

Frustrated silence on the other end of the call made Santana smirk evilly. Berry was just _too_ easy to mess with. Seriously. No wonder Puck was trippin’.

“Santana, when did you know it was Brittany?”

“Is this some hypothetical body-switching question or something?”

“No, I mean…when did you know that Brittany was the _one_?”

“Why are you asking me this? I thought you already knew that orca was the _one_.”

“Oh, he is!” Rachel answered too quickly, making the smirk inch a little wider. “I was just wondering about you.”

“You sit there wondering about my status as a soul mate, Berry? Christ.”

“Santana.”

Santana rolled her eyes and shook her head in disappointment. She loved Brittany. She loved Brittany. She loved Brittany. That was the only thing that was gonna get her through this dumbfuckery.

“I just _knew_ , okay?” Santana muttered. “I never had to rationalize or justify it. Never had to do some pros and cons list. I just knew that no matter where the fuck I went, I would never be able to find someone who could measure up to her. And everyone knows it.”

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked, trying to stifle the worry in her tone as she clutched her cell phone tighter in her hand.

“Like what you’re doing now, _idiota_ ,” Santana pointed out as affectionately as she could—which sounded more bitchy than affectionate, really. “It’s so obvious that Brits and I belong together that you’re basically using us as some sort of standard.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Yeah.”

**~oOo~**

“So what do I do?” Finn asked, holding the base of the ladder.

Puck jabbed at a particularly annoying clusterfuck of leaves in the gutter. “That is like the five-hundredth time you’ve asked me that question, Hudson, and the only thing I know is that if you ask it one more time, I’m gonna start poking at your face and not these leaves.”

“Dude!”

“What the fuck do you _want_ , Finn?!” Puck demanded angrily, finally pausing his work to glare down. “What _the fuck_ do you _want_?!”

“I don’t know!”

“Do you wanna be a teacher?”

“No.”

“Do you wanna be an accountant?”

“No.”

“Do you wanna be a rock star?”

“No.”

“Do you wanna be a doctor?”

“No.”

“Do you wanna be a mailman?”

“No!”

“Do you wanna be a stripper?”

“No!”

“Do you wanna be a gigolo?”

“NO!”

“Then for God’s sake, how the hell am I supposed to help you?! Do you want me to whack you in the head with this pole to try and knock some shit loose in your skull?!”

“Do you think that’d help?” Finn asked desperately.

Puck answered by jabbing the blunt end of the pole at Finn’s forehead.

“ _Now_ do you know what you want?”

Finn rubbed his forehead gingerly. “No.”

“What do you like doing, dude?” Puck sighed, turning back to the clump of leaves. “Do you have some hidden talent you been holding out on us or something?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, what hobbies do you have?”

“I haven’t really had much time for hobbies between school and working at Burt’s.”

“Well, do you _like_ working at Burt’s?” Motherfucking clump will not get the fuck out!

“It’s fine, I guess. I mean, I actually understand what I’m doing, so that helps. This part goes here, and this part goes there. It all fits together.”

“So you like puzzles?”

“I guess, but you can’t give me anything more complicated than a car.”

Puck shot Finn a disbelieving look. “Cars are already pretty complicated, man. You’ve got that much going for ya.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Finn.” _Christ_. “You’re not a complete idiot, dude. You’ve got some hope. Quit being so disparaging to yourself.”

“So I’m good with cars,” Finn muttered to himself before turning back up to Puck. “So should I become a mechanic? Help Burt and eventually take over the business?”

“Can you see yourself doing that?” Puck asked.

There was a long pause from down belong as Puck continued trying to pry the big-ass clump of leaves from out of the rain gutter.

“I guess…yeah. I mean, I _like_ working with Burt and since Kurt’s going off to that fashion school, no one’ll be at home to help him. And I know Kurt gets worried about Burt and his heart, so maybe it’ll be good for me to stay.”

“DUDE!”

_“What?!”_

“What did I say about outside interference?!”

“Fine! Yes, I can see myself working at Burt’s!”

“Can you see yourself _happy_ at that job?”

“Well, no. Not really. I mean, yeah, I’ll be fine with it, but I don’t wanna be a grease monkey for the rest of my life. It’s fine as, like, a side business, but I don’t like the thought of having a private business. Not with this economy.”

Puck actually felt a pang of pride that Finn knew what an economy was, let alone the state of it.

“Okay, so we found a good enough fall-back job for you: mechanic,” Puck announced. “We’re makin’ progress.”

Finn grinned and scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah. Thanks, dude.”

“Don’t thank me yet, fucktard. We haven’t answered the big question yet,” Puck snapped. “What have you always, always wanted to do—ever since we were little? And _don’t_ , for the love of all that is holy, say ‘be Superman.’ I will ram this pole down your throat.”

Finn thought about it for a couple of seconds and then he looked back up the ladder. “Travel.”

“Travel?” Puck asked incredulously.

“Yeah, travel.”

Puck nodded contemplatively. “Okay. Travel. You wanna be a steward on the plane?”

“No.”

“Yeah, you’re too big. You’d end up tripping and squishing someone. How about—no, nevermind. You’re better off nowhere near a driver’s seat, so a train conductor or a pilot is completely out of the question. How about a traveling salesman?”

“No.”

“Uh… How about you…just… Hm. Finn, do you _actually_ want to go to college?”

Finn paused, having never actually been asked that question before. “I don’t really like school. I barely get anything out of it, and sitting for another four years to get some degree doesn’t really sound all that appealing.”

Puck chuckled. “Why don’t you just take a year off? Use the money you got for working at Sheets n’ Things and at Burt’s to backpack around Europe and shit. If you run out, you can stop someplace and work at a mechanic’s for some cash and then be on your merry way again.”

Finn was so quiet that Puck got a little worried. “Yo. You having a stroke down there?”

“No, no,” Finn muttered distractedly. “It’s just that… You make sense, man. I mean, there a bunch of graduates who backpack to Europe to find themselves, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And there would be nothing wrong with me going there, right? Life experience and all that?”

“Yeah.”

“And who knows? Maybe I can succeed somewhere over there since I don’t know what the fuck to do here.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I’ll be a chocolatier.”

Puck suddenly had the mental image of biting into an imported bon-bon and finding a piece of plastic.

“Yeah, sure, buddy.”

“Or maybe I could work at Volkswagen or Audi or one of those big foreign car companies!”

“Totally.”

“There’s a ton of shit I could do over there!”

“Yeah, dude.”

“Puckerman, you’re friggin’ awesome. I would never have thought of going to Europe!”

“I know, Hudson. I know.”

Puck was happy for him. Seriously. But this goddamned, motherfucking clump of fucking leaves would not fucking—

The clump suddenly shook and sprouted a fluffy black and white tail.

“FUCK!” Puck screeched, tipping backward on the ladder as the skunk burst out of the muddy armor of leaves and reared at him.

“WHAT?!” Finn cried from below, and Puck felt the ladder shake as Finn—in a moment of pure, unadulterated idiocy—began to _climb up the ladder after him_.

The skunk turned and raised its tail, ass aimed right at Puck’s face.

“FUCK!”

And Puck responded the way anyone else would’ve. He dropped the pole, braced his hands on either side of the gutter, and pushed himself and the ladder off the edge, tipping back.

Puck and Finn screamed in perfect baritone and tenor harmony as the ladder tipped back just as the skunk sprayed out, barely missing Puck. The ladder continued its descent until both boys crashed into the pool that was (thankfully) right behind them.

**~oOo~**

“Brittany?”

Brittany flounced around, ponytail bouncing as she skipped over to Rachel. “Hey, B. What’s up? Come get some pudding with me!”

“I can’t, Brittany, the dairy—”

One look at the blonde’s face, and Rachel caved—vegan or not, no one could turn down Brittany.

“—will be _so_ good for my vocal chords. On to pudding we go.”

Brittany grinned and linked her arm with Rachel’s as they walked to the cafeteria. “So what did you need?”

“I just wanted to ask you something,” Rachel answered tentatively, hoping and praying that Brittany wasn’t going to bring out her famous, incomprehensible metaphors.

“Sure! What’cha need?”

“Why Santana?” Rachel asked bluntly. “There are so many guys and girls you could choose from. Why did you pick Santana? I love her half to death now, but she’s abrasive and mean and—”

“That’s why I love her,” Brittany answered simply, not offended at all.

Rachel stared at her in disbelief. “You love her because she’s mean and abrasive?”

Brittany nodded brightly. “Yeah.”

Rachel still couldn’t wrap her head around it. “But _why_? There’s Sam, Artie—all those other guys…”

“They’re nice,” Brittany agreed. “They’re awesome. But I don’t want them.”

“But _why_?” Rachel persisted.

“Sam, Artie, and all those other guys are like normal cupcakes. They’re sweet and delicious, but that’s all they are. They’re pretty on the outside. I want a lava cake. I want Santana. She looks pretty on the outside, sure. She’s just a normal cake, but once you break her open, all the melted, delicious, yummy chocolate comes gushing out, and it’s just _epic_. You know what I mean?”

Rachel was absolutely bewildered. “No.”

Brittany paused and tapped her index finger against her bottom lip, her head cocked to the side as she thought of a better explanation. Then she snapped her fingers and grinned.

 “Because I like Sour Patch Kids,” Brittany replied. “The other guys are just gummie bears, and gummie bears are boring. They’re totally like, _What you see is what you get_ , and I don’t like that. I want surprises. I like thinking that they’re sour and nasty at first, but then the longer you stick with it, the bigger the surprise is because they’re sweet and soft on the inside, and it’s, like, eight-hundred levels of awesomeness. That makes all the difference. Having the sour part before makes you appreciate the sweetness and makes the actual sweetness so much better. You know what I mean?”

The horrified expression on Rachel’s face said everything Brittany wanted to hear.

Rachel got what she meant.

**~oOo~**

After hauling themselves out of the freezing-cold pool, Puck and Finn had to shag ass back to Puck’s house to get warm before either of them got pneumonia. Bekah was already there waiting for them with hot baths, hot chocolate, the heated blankets, and an expression that said, _You two are such dimwits._

“What do I do about Rachel, dude?” Finn asked, after taking a sip of his hot chocolate.

Puck grimaced. “I don’t know. What _are_ you gonna do about Rachel?”

“I mean, if I’m going to Europe…I can’t follow her to New York like we planned,” Finn explained.

Puck gulped down his entire cup of hot chocolate, relishing the fact that his throat was now on fucking _fire_.

“Hit me,” he rasped to Bekah, who shook her head, rolled her eyes, and filled up his mug again.

“I know she said our plans were tentative, but she’s my endgame, dude. I wanna follow her to New York.”

“But you _just_ said you wanted to go to Europe,” Puck pointed out.

“Yeah, but I want Rachel too.”

“You can’t have both.”

“I can ask her to wait for me. She loves me. She’ll do it.”

Puck couldn’t fucking believe his ears. Jesus Christ, how did this guy deserve her? “If you really love her, dude, you wouldn’t ask her to do that.”

Finn was too confused to notice what Puck was doing. “So what do I do?”

Bekah took her cue. “So I was reading this book by the same author who wrote the _Princess Diaries_ the other day.”

“Beks, we don’t care about your life,” Puck sighed.

Bekah glowered at him but continued. “There was a quote that the author used, and I think it’s totally appropriate for your situation. _If you love something, set it free. If it was meant to be, it’ll come back to you_.”

Puck winked at his sister discreetly.

Finn grimaced. “So I have to let go of Rachel?”

“Look, Rachel knows what she wants. She wants Broadway, she wants her dreams. You don’t even know what you really want yet. You can’t let her tie you down. She has her dreams, you need to find yours. Besides, you never know if you might meet your soul mate in Germany or something.”

Finn stared at Puck. “Germany?”

“Yeah,” Puck said, shrugging. “Brunehilde of Frankfurt.”

Bekah snorted into her hot chocolate.

Finn chuckled and glanced back down at the cup of hot chocolate in his hands as he hugged the blanket closer around his shoulders. “I know what you’re doing.”

Puck scoffed. “I’m really not trying to steal Berry away from you, dude.”

“You’re just manipulating things to give yourself a chance,” Finn said knowingly.

Puck shrugged. “We’re both crazy about this chick. Can you blame me?”

“No.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

Finn looked at Puck. Puck looked at Finn. Bekah rolled her eyes.

“Weigh your options, Finny,” Bekah sighed. “Do you _honestly_ , _truthfully_ think that Rachel’s _it_ for you? This is Lima, Ohio. You’re trawling the bottom of a _pond_ for gold. I’m not saying this because I’m on Noah’s side or anything. I’m trying to ask you why you want Rachel. Are there fireworks?”

“Ye…no.”

“Are you… _enchanted_ by her voice?”

“Of course.”

“But is it enough to last you _forever_?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Do you want to get out of Lima?”

“Duh.”

“But do you want to go to New York?”

“It’s a nice place, but…”

“It’s not where you’re supposed to be,” Bekah finished for him knowingly. “There’s something called _dharma_ in the yoga practice.”

Puck’s eyebrow went up.

“It’s basically, like, this belief in the spiritual path that you have to follow, but only your Inner Self knows about it, so you have to, like, meditate a lot to figure it out. It’s like… _destiny_. Do you think your destiny lies with Rachel or do you just want her because you figure that she’s best Lima has to offer?”

Finn frowned at his chocolate, and Puck frowned at his sister.

 _The hell?_ he mouthed.

Bekah just shrugged, and Puck rolled his eyes.

“Look, dude,” Puck said. “We’re not telling you to dump Rachel. Just…talk stuff out with her, all right? Talk to her about Europe. See what she says. She’ll support you, of course, but you gotta figure out if Rach fits into your plans. You can’t build your life around someone else’s.”

**~oOo~**

Puck walked out onto the stage and stood behind the microphone, armed with an electric guitar he borrowed from one of the guitarists in the band. The lights were dim as he took a deep breath. He could vaguely see Finn through the darkness of the auditorium, sitting next to Artie and Blaine and Kurt and leaning forward anxiously. Berry was in between Santana and Mike, biting her lip in anticipation.

Their breakup wasn’t a surprise, really. Especially not to Puck.

They didn’t explicitly announce it to Lima, but it was obvious the moment they walked into glee the day before. They exchanged a small smile and went to sit down—far apart. Practically every single gleek was trying to keep from grinning, and Schue, of course, was fucking clueless. Even Santana was in a good enough mood to playfully punch Finn on the arm. Unfortunately, he bent down at the _wrong moment_ to catch the punch right on the cheek. And Santana’s “playful” punches were pretty fucking hard, so now Finn had a black eye.

But all in all, everything was just…FUCKING AWESOME.

And with that thought, Puck signaled to the drummer, and the dude slammed out the first beats right before Puck’s fingers skimmed over the guitar. Everyone whooped when they finally recognized the song. The brass blared in accompaniment, and Santana and Brittany immediately dragged Rachel up to dance with them.

Puck leaned toward the mic and drawled, _“Man, it’s a hot one, like seven inches from the midday sun. I hear you whisper, and the words melt everyone, but you stay so cool. My munequita_.” Santana trilled, and Puck chuckled deeply into the mic. _“My Spanish harlem Mona Lisa. You’re my reason for reason, the step in my groove.”_

All the gleeks were jumping up to dance up and down the aisles again, and Puck kept himself from chuckling. Why the fuck do these people always have to dance around to songs?

 _“And if you say this life ain’t good enough, I would give my world to lift you up. I could change my life to better suit your mood…’cause you’re so_ smooth _. And it’s just like the ocean under the moon, it’s the same as the emotion that I get from you. You got the kind of lovin’ that can be so smooth. Gimme your heart, make it real or else forget about it.”_

Pillsbury, Bieste, and Schue cheered as Puck broke out his mad guitar skillz—playing fucking _Carlos Santana_ like it was nothing.

Talent showcase?

Nah, this wasn’t him showcasing nothin’.

This was him serenading Berry _all over again_. And this time, as he watched Berry in the middle of a mocha and white chocolate orgy that was Santana and Brittany while Finn was off dancing like Chewbacca…no guilt.


	10. The Changs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, peoples. Look up yonder. See that? That's a T. T for me means a lot of language (hence the copious amounts of f-bombs that have been dropped in the last 72,000 words) and a bare minimum of sexual content. Why, NiteFang? Why? Because I avoid writing what I don't know. I don't write that because I have no idea what that is like. So all of you who are expecting some Smuckleberry, sorry to disappoint, but no. It ain't happening. I'll try my best with...a scene or two, but it's not gonna be able to cross into the realm of "smut."

Okay, Puck thought this shit would be done and over with once Finchel’s demise finally settled over Lima, but apparently not.

For one thing, Satan, Brit, Warbler, Hummel, Wheels, Aretha, Evans, Leprechaun, Chang-Squared and (to his ultimate shock) Baby Mama wouldn’t get off his ass for not setting fire to the Puckleberry and seizing the opportunity to get under those goddamn skirts. Even his ma wouldn’t get off his ass about it, dropping “subtle hints” (AKA blatant demands for a beautiful, talented, Jewish daughter-in-law).

The only reason why he didn’t jump at the opportunity was because of Bekah.

Oh, hell, yeah, Bekah wanted Puckleberry as much as damn near everyone else, but she only had to tell him one thing to think twice about turning up the Seduction Dial to 569%: “Finn may not be your best friend anymore, but you still kinda owe him. Just…wait, ‘kay? Keep the rest of your senior year drama-free…and spare yourself from _I-can’t-believe-you’re-doing-this-to-me-again_ punches.”

Okay, he glared at her for a total of eight seconds before he realized that she kinda made sense. They still had nationals to deal with, and he’d rather not have a pouting Finn breathing down his neck in the middle of their numbers despite how much he wanted his hands under Berry’s skirts. He already _kinda_ stole male lead from Finn, he didn’t wanna push Puckleberry under his nose either.

So he’d wait.

He’d turn the Flirting Dial up to 5934987342% _for_ _sure_ , but he wouldn’t ask her out. Not until the right time. Well, not until Finn was outta the country because the dumbass was _dead-set_ on the whole Europe thing.

He knew Berry liked him (duh), and of course, Berry couldn’t quit blushing when he got near her. He hated that he had to keep his distance (metaphorically ‘cause he was always right up in her space as much as possible) and truthfully, he was kind of happy to have these shenanigans to occupy him again. There was a period of a couple of months where he legit had nothing better to do than to keep from dragging Berry into the supply room, but now that he had another project, he didn’t have to constantly dwell on his blue balls.

Unfortunately, he was back to the whole risking-incarceration thing.

Insert longsuffering look here.

“Are you sure? I think I like this one better.”

“Chang, an evil queen with an ego the size of Russia would like that.”

Mike scowled and straightened up from where he was hunched over the glass counter. “You’ve said no to practically everything I’ve pointed at, dude.”

Puck scoffed and rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who wanted me here. Don’t get all up in my ass if I’m giving you my opinion.”

Mike shot him a baleful look. “You’ve been telling me why everything sucks, but you’re not giving me any ideas to play off of.”

“Well, _excuse_ _me_ for not being an expert at this shit. Why didn’t you get Hummel, Pierce, Fabray, Jones, or Berry to help you? They’re better suited at picking out shit like this.”

“ _They_ know what I’m looking for?”

“ _They_ are not _dudes_!”

“Kurt—”

“Kurt is _gay_.”

“ _Still_!” Mike protested, running his hands through his hair. “You’re like my best friend, man. And I can’t drag Matt all the way here from Houston.”

Puck snorted. “So I’m your _backup_? Thanks. Really gives me more incentive to keep you from crashing and burning. I’m gonna enjoy this show.”

“You know what I mean! I couldn’t ask Sam ‘cause he’d just point out anything that resembles Na’vi jewelry or whatever, Finn would be blinded into stupidity by all the shining stuff, Artie is her _ex_ - _boyfriend_ , I don’t know Rory well enough to ask for his help even if it’d be helpful to begin with, asking Blaine is basically asking Kurt since they’re like this _package_ _deal_ , and I can’t tell Kurt ‘cause he’d _blab_!”

Mike gasped for air after his little tangent, and Puck rolled his eyes. He’s got such psychotic friends. No wonder his life was easier before glee. All his buddies back then were vapid idiots who didn’t care about their future unless it involved booze, bongs, or banging.

“Okay, _sweetie_ ,” Puck said patronizingly as he clapped the red-faced Asian on the back. “The Puckasaurus’ll help you ‘cause your taste is absolute _shit_.”

Unfortunately, the saleslady only caught Puck’s part of the conversation—apparently dwelling on the sarcastic “sweetie” part.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she gushed, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and clasping her hands together. “Congratulations on your engagement! Is there any particular style you and your partner are shopping for?”

Jesus Christ.

Puck’s jaw twitched, but before a sneer could form on his face, he decided, _What_ _the_ _hell_?

“We’re foregoing the ring actually,” Puck said, setting his hand on Mike’s shoulder and squeezing so hard Mike squeaked. “Do you have any diamond-studded whips?”

“DUDE!” Mike screeched, punching Puck in the ribs and jumping about eight feet away. “We’re not engaged! I’ve got a girlfriend, and he’s tripping all over another chick!”

Puck burst out laughing as the lady blushed and tried to stammer out awkward apologies.

“I-I am s-s-so—you c-c-called him s-sweetie, and I-I—I just thought th-that—”

“Relax, relax,” Puck said, still chortling. “I was kidding. But I’d still be curious about that whip. I mean, my buddy and his girl are practically ninjas, and Tina wears a hell of a lot of black, so she could pull off the domina—”

“PUCK!”

“Fine, fine, fine,” Puck sighed. “We’re looking for an engagement ring for my buddy’s girl. What’chu got that a high school student can afford?”

So on top of the twenty minutes they’d already spent in that godforsaken shop, they stayed for an additional hour because Chang’s taste was _seriously_ absolute shit, the lady had a fucking hoard of extra rings stashed in the back and patience that could rival Mother Teresa’s, and Puck was obligated to help one of his best friends.

So you can only imagine how badly this little adventure was going.

Mike held up a ring with a tentative smile.

Puck raised an eyebrow. “Dude, I can’t even see the diamond on that thing. You may as well just get a plain ol’ band.”

Mike held up another ring, this time with a grin.

Puck shot him a dry look. “That is _way_ too girly for someone who dresses like Tina. For real.”

Mike held up another ring with an expectant expression.

Puck smirked. “You kinky bastard. Look at the spikes on those things. You really want her carving out your back every time you—”

Mike held up another ring, this time with a fond smile.

Puck grimaced. “Chang. That is shaped like a heart. Tina would take _skulls_ not _hearts_.”

Mike held up another ring, this time his smile taking on a desperate twinge.

Puck sighed. “Now that just looks downright _gaudy_. What kind of opinion do you have about your girl, man? Shameful.”

Mike held up another ring, looking absolutely nervous.

Puck rolled his eyes. “You haven’t even proposed, and you’d already be in debt. Not a good sign, dude.”

Mike held up another ring, frowning warily.

Puck scowled. “I’m pretty sure that’s for a guy.”

The saleslady _had_ to cut in. “All right, Mr. Puck.”

“Puckerman.”

“Mr. _Puckerman_ ,” she amended. “We have another option for our more... _particular_ customers where they can design their own rings. Since nothing we have available seems up to your standards, let me give you a form so you can—”

“What about that one?”

“Oh, thank _heaven_!” the saleslady gasped in relief.

Mike practically ran to the counter where Puck was pointing. Puck strolled after him leisurely, having spotted the ring as soon as they walked into the store but wanting Mike to find it for himself.

“Dude...” Mike said, awestruck. “It’s perfect. It’s just a little edgy but at the same time simple and classy—just like Tina! Why didn’t we see it before?”

“Because you dived straight for the diamonds,” Puck pointed out.

“Well, in Mr. Chang’s defense,” the saleslady said, opening the glass case and pulling the ring out, “no one usually buys a black onyx as an engagement ring.”

“Well, there are two diamonds on either side of it,” Puck said, scowling defensively. “It still works.”

“But Mr. Puckerman is right. From what you’ve told me about your girlfriend, Mr. Chang, this ring seems very well-suited for her. I’m sure she’ll love it.”

Mike held the ring up to the light with a silly grin.

“Usually onyxes are paired with pearls and are meant for ten-year anniversaries,” the saleslady explained, but then she stopped when she saw Puck’s glare. “But it is _perfectly_ acceptable as an engagement ring. Shall I ring you up?”

And then the silly grin vanished from Mikes face, and Puck braced himself for the dumbfuckery to start.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this,” Chang said uncertainly. “I’m graduating in a month, and she’s still a junior! It’s too soon!”

The saleslady’s smile froze and melted away. She turned and trudged off, leaving Puck to deal with his lunatic friend.

Mike stared up a him, eyes wide in fear. “Dude. I can’t do this. Dad already hates me for allegedly fucking up my life—he’ll decapitate, castrate, and disown me if I marry Tina!”

Puck sighed. “Chang, you don’t have to marry her right away. Christ. You don’t even have to propose to her right away. And it was your mom that stood by you when you joined the musical, right?”

Mike nodded.

“And she likes Tina, right?”

Mike nodded again.

“And she’s the one who trusts your judgment, right?”

Mike nodded one more time.

“Then just buy the ring, talk shit through with your mom, and propose whenever you want to.”

Mike nodded slowly again, and Puck could see the sense in his words seeping into the Asian’s head. But then his smile crumbled again.

“I can’t do—”

And now is when the risk of incarceration comes to play again.

Why?

Oh...‘cause Puck snatched the ring and ran out of the store.

The saleslady materialized next to Mike as the latter watched his friend run around his parked truck, trying to evade the security guy.

“You know, if you pay for the ring, I can call Raydor off Mr. Puckerman.”

Mike was scowling. “Oh, I know. I figured his plan out as soon as he ran out the store.”

“Are you just going to let him run for a bit then?” the saleslady asked knowingly.

“Well, of course,” Mike answered, smirking. “I’ll pay for it now, but don’t call security off just yet. Let him sweat for five minutes or so.”

The saleslady grinned as Mike forked over a wad of cash. “You’re an evil man, Mr. Chang.”

“It’s all his own fault. His evil rubbed off on me after all these years,” Mike said, shrugging and settling himself on a nearby stool to watch the show.

**~oOo~**

“Okay, remind me again why we’re doing this?” Finn asked.

Puck sighed as he pushed a couple more buttons to get the auditorium lights positioned correctly. “Because apparently I didn’t get the memo that the secrets of the universe have been dumped on my lap, so now everyone’s turning to me since they don’t know what the hell to do with their lives.”

Artie laughed. “But you’re taking it to a whole new level.”

“What?!” Puck demanded defensively. “Chang is still the one doing the proposing! I’m just setting the mood. Don’t hate if I’m just giving them a nudge in the right direction.”

“You sent Sam and Blaine to fetch Mike and Tina so you can _lock_ them in here. I don’t think that’s considered a ‘nudge in the right direction’ anymore,” Artie said pointedly.

Puck snorted. “It’s a nudge for Chang. I had to _steal_ a ring to get him to buy it.

Artie shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t even want to know the story behind that.”

Puck turned back to the control panel. “And _I_ am sick of Chang mooning around like some lovesick puppy, carrying around the damn ring ‘cause he doesn’t know when the hell to pop the question.”

“You never went this far for anyone else,” Finn said, pouting a little.

“Dude, I _kidnapped_ Stevie and Stacy,” Puck reminded him.

“Well, okay, yeah, but I mean, like, you did _two_ things for Mike. You helped him buy the ring _and_ now you’re helping him propose.”

“You jealous or something?” Puck scoffed. “I fucking uncovered a mystery of the world, Hudson—your _future_.”

“Shut up, Puck.”

“ _You_ shut up.”

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” Artie muttered.

Puck shrugged. “Chang’s my homeboy. Taught me some kickass ninja moves and shit. Now can you just shut up and get down to the stage? They’ll be here soon.”

“Puck, you are such a softie,” Finn chortled as he wheeled Artie away.

Puck scowled, grabbed a nearby instruction manual, rolled it up, and whacked Finn with it, causing a little scuffle that ended when Artie cried, “Stop, you morons! I am on the edge of these stairs, and if you two make me a quadriplegic, there will be _hell_ to pay!”

“Just hurry the fuck up!” Puck hissed, pushing one last button before one of the doors behind him swung open, and Santana, Berry, and the rest of the gleeks (minus Blaine, Sam, Mike, and Tina, of course) filtered in with Schue right behind them.

“You know what to do, right?” Puck asked Rory, who sat down at the controls.

Kid spewed off some weird Irish babble that Puck immediately tuned out as he made his way toward the stage. He clambered up and brushed off his hands, getting into position before signaling to Rory.

The lights blacked out, and the gleeks lapsed into silence.

“Evans! Don’t make me go all Kung Fu Panda on your pasty ass!”

Puck snorted at Tina’s outburst—loud and clear in spite of the fact that they weren’t even inside yet. Her projection had seriously improved since her fake-stuttering days.

“Ow! Tina! Stop!” Sam cried.

“Tina—”

“Don’t you start with me, Mike! You have been poppin’ and lockin’ on my patience all month!”

“Tina, just calm—”

“Blaine, shut up!”

“Okay, that’s it!” Sam barked.

The auditorium doors swung open, letting in just enough light for everyone to see Sam and Blaine shove Tina and Mike into the auditorium before everything went black again, the sounds of the doors locking echoed loudly.

Mike’s disjointed voice sounded through the darkness. “Tina, please, just let me expl—”

“Mike, I’m _tired_!” Tina cried in frustration. “I’m stressed out with finals and school and my parents, and all of a sudden my boyfriend starts pulling away from me, and I cannot even fathom a reason why.”

Puck felt a breeze as Blaine and Sam lined up next to him on the stage. Those fucking ninjas. He was so proud.

“I’ve just been really distracted—”

“No, _really_?!” Tina gasped mockingly. “So are the rest of the seniors! But _you’re_ the only one running around like a scalded rat, either trying to get away from me or toward me! And you won’t even _talk_ to me!”

“Tina, I’m _sorry_ ,” Mike said earnestly. Poor little turd. “I’ve had to do a lot of thinking involving you, and I’m sorry if I looked like a…a _scalded rat_. I’ve just been going insane about this.”

“About what?” Tina asked, her voice dropping back down to normal levels. “Mike, you know you can talk to me about anything.”

“Tina, I—”

And Puck found his perfect opening.

 _“I see the questions in your eyes. I know what's weighing on your mind. You can be sure I know my part.”_ He distinctly heard Brittany whoop as Rory pulled up five individual spotlights on Puck, Finn, Sam, Blaine, and Artie. _“‘Cause I'll stand beside you through the years. You'll only cry those happy tears.”_

Blaine jumped in, catching the melody as Puck dropped to harmony. _“And though I make mistakes, I'll never break your heart.”_

Tina went from pissed, to frustrated, to sad, to shocked, to happy, and to full-on weeping while Mike just stared up at his friends, his mouth practically brushing the floor in a pure “WTF?” expression.  
  
No accompaniment, just pure a capella—Finn, Puck, Artie, Sam, and Blaine sang in perfect Rachel-Berry-organized harmony, _“And I swear by the moon and the stars in the skies, I'll be there. I swear, like the shadow that's by your side, I'll be there. For better or worse, till death do us part, I’ll love you with every beat of my heart, and I swear.”_

Mike quickly recovered long enough to pull his mouth back up, lead Tina toward the more open space in front of the stage, and pull her into a slow, intricate dance that she still managed to pull off gracefully in spite of the tears.

 _“I’ll give you everything I can,”_ Finn sang as the rest of the guys dropped into the _oooh_ ’s Blaine coached them on, _“I’ll build your dreams with these two hands. We'll hang some memories on the walls.”  
_  
 _“And when,”_ Sam joined in, _“just the two of us are there, you won't have to ask if I still care ‘cause as the time turns the page, my love won't age at all.”_

Artie took the lead on the final chorus. _“And I swear by the moon and the stars in the skies, I'll be there. I swear, like the shadow that's by your side, I'll be there. For better or worse, till death do us part, I’ll love you with every single beat of my heart, and I…swear.”_

The rest of the gleeks waited with baited breath as Mike pulled Tina to a graceful stop and gently kissed her cheek before dropping to one knee.

“Oh, my God!” Tina gasped, chinky eyes going as wide as plates.

Puck grinned as Berry, Brittany, Jones, and Kurt legit _squealed._ He signaled once more to Rory, and the Irishman manipulated the spotlights to train one single beam down on Mike and Tina.

“I can’t write,” Mike began softly, “I can _barely_ sing, and I don’t even talk much to begin with, but even I know that there will ever only be three words that matter in our entire lives: _I love you._ ”

Mike paused to let that sink in, but then Puck realized that the dude had _choked_. He didn’t know where to go from there, and Puck was about to throw something at him when Mike managed to ball up and keep going.

“I don’t know how I managed to dance my way into your heart, but I hope to God that you won’t kick me out because I’m _home_ , Tina. For as long as I’m with you, I know that I’m in the right place, I’m where I’m meant to be, and I will work as hard as I can for as long as _super_ humanly possible to make sure that you feel the same way.”

“Oh, Mike,” Tina whispered, wiping at her face.

“I will protect you, feed you, make you laugh, wipe your tears, dance with you, kiss you senseless, make you dumplings, and whatever else you want me to do because I’m _yours_.”

Then he reached behind him and pulled out the red velvet box and pried open the lid.

“OH, MY GOD!” Tina screamed when she saw the ring.

“I know this isn’t a typical engagement ring, but you’re not just some typical girl. You’re _Tina_ ,” Mike continued, “and you deserve so much more than anyone could ever give you. All I ask right now…is that you give me a chance to try. So, Tina Cohen-Chang, will you dance with me forever?”

“OH, MY GOD!” Kurt screamed from where he was locked in an epic circle of hand-holding with all the other gleeks including Schue.

“YES!” Tina screamed. “YES! YES! YES! HOLY MARY MOTHER OF—YES!”

Mike grinned and surged up to his feet to grab Tina and swing her around. Puck smiled even when Sam punched him in the shoulder.

“You’re a genius, man.”

“I know, dude, I know.”

**~oOo~**

Mike suddenly materialized next to Puck as he was putting some of the wires away backstage. Asian still had them bloodshot eyes, but the grin on his face would not disappear.

“Noah Puckerman,” Mike said, “I love you.”

Puck rolled his eyes. “Christ, Chang, you just proposed to Tina. Don’t be confessing your undying love for me too.”

Mike ignored him and grabbed him in a tight hug and muttered, “Thank you.”

Puck sighed and clapped his friend on the back a couple of times. “You owe me, bitch.”

“‘Cause you are just physically incapable of a simple ‘you’re welcome,’” Mike chuckled.

 “You come up with that speech on the fly?” Puck asked when they pulled apart.

Mike punched him in the arm lightly. “You gave me no fucking choice, asshat.”

Puck smirked and shrugged. “It was pretty epic, though, man. I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna be able to top that.”

Mike shrugged. “You just don’t have the badass Asian gene, man, sorry.”

Puck chuckled a little and shook Mike’s shoulder a little. “Congratulations, Chang.”

Mike smiled and cleared his throat. “Thanks, Puckerman.”

“Anytime, dude.”

Mike had walked off, and Puck was back to working on the wirings when someone else came up behind him. Judging from the smell of those unmistakable sugar cookies, he knew exactly who it was.

“Hey, Berry,” he said without turning around to face her.

“Noah, that was a very sweet thing you did for Michael,” she said softly, coming to stand next to him.

“You said that when I recruited you to coach us with the song, Berry,” he reminded her. “I know.”

“So…”

“So…?”

“Bekah called me a couple of days ago.”

Puck immediately snapped up and stared down at her with wide eyes. _“Why?”_

“She explained to me why you still hadn’t made a move on me,” she answered bluntly.

Puck swallowed. “And…?”

She smiled up at him a little. “I understand, Noah. It makes complete sense, and though I was extremely insecure about the fact that you hadn’t asked me out or officially declared me as ‘your girl’—”

“It’s an unspoken fact, Berry,” Puck said huskily, taking a step closer to her.

She gulped and her eyes fell down to her ballet flats. “Well, I talked to Bekah, and I think it’s a very honorable thing—what you’re doing, I mean. I know about your devil-may-care attitude, but I think the fact that you’re doing this for Finn says a lot about your _real_ attitude, the _real_ Noah Puckerman.”

“Didn’t we have this conversation before, Berry? The Puckerone isn’t just some front. It’s my default personality,” he said, taking another step closer to back her into the steel frame and corral her between his arms.

“Well, apparently the Puckerone isn’t all spikes and scowls,” she muttered, eyes fixed on his lips.

He smirked. “I promised Bekah that you wouldn’t be my girlfriend until Finn was flying over the Atlantic.”

“Yes, I know,” she muttered quietly, still staring at his mouth.

He inhaled deeply, taking in the sweet sugar cookie smell (she baked a batch of wedding bell-shaped ones just for today since everyone but Mike and Tina had been in on the whole shebang) and the faint remnants of her perfume. “But I never said anything about not doing _anything_.”

“Noah, your grammar is atrocious,” she breathed.

Puck chuckled deep in his throat and bent his head closer to hers. “The fact that you didn’t register what I said is a lot more discouraging than my apparent disdain for acknowledging the rule against double negatives.”

The groan she let out went straight to his dick before her mouth went straight for his. Talk about 0 to 100MPH. Her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs went around his hips as he tangled one hand in her hair and locked the other one around her waist to keep her from falling.

The fucking _lightning_ that skittered across his skin short-circuited his brain as he pushed her up against the wall and sucked on her bottom lip, his hands roaming downward to stroke the bottoms of her thighs. It hadn’t even been ten seconds, and he was already burning up in his shirt, practically dying to pull it off.

Actually, he was dying to pull _her_ dress off, but he had enough presence of mind to know that wasn’t a line to be crossed just yet.

He dragged his lips from hers to trail them down the line of her jaw, up to her ear to nip at her lobe, before kissing down her neck and across her collarbone, making her gasp and squeeze him tighter.

“ _Noah_ , dear _GOD_ ,” she moaned.

Okay, those kinds of words needed to _end_ before shit started going down.

He hiked her up further on his hips, using the wall as leverage, so that he ran his hands up and down her sides, kissing up her throat toward her chin and finally settling back on her swollen, pink lips. He took his time with the taste of cookies in her mouth before slowing down their kisses and gently lowering her back onto the floor.

He pecked her lips, her cheeks, her nose, her eyes, and finally her forehead before backing off completely.

“Wait for New York, baby,” he whispered. “New York.”


	11. Schue

" _What?"_

"You heard me, Evans. Don't make me say it again."

Sam threw his head back and groaned toward the ceiling of the hallway. "There is something _seriously_ wrong with your head, dude. Like, I can't even begin to try to understand what's wrong with you."

"What are you talking about, bitch?" Puck grumbled defensively. "I'm a fucking perfect specimen of a man."

"The day you're perfect is the day I'll become a stripper named 'White Chocolate,'" Sam quipped, slamming his locker shut. "And it'll also be the day Rachel gives up NYADA for you."

Puck scoffed. "She'll do it."

Sam gave him a longsuffering look. "She won't."

"She _will_."

"She _won't_."

Puck sighed and clapped Sam on the back— _hard_. "Oh, ye of little faith. Have you not seen all the shit I've done this year? I'm fucking Santa Claus. Only without the fat, the red suit, and the white hair."

"Not to mention the _conscience_ ," Sam added under his breath.

"Consciences are for people who don't know what they want in life," Puck corrected him. "And—"

"Hey, Rick! Did you see the lawn gnome yet?"

Puck and Sam both froze and turned to look at one of the hockey players who ran up to Ugly-Mullet.

"His name is Rick?" Sam muttered vaguely.

"No, it's Dick," Puck said darkly, glaring at the hockey players.

Rick/Dick/Ugly-Mullet suddenly pulled out a slushie from his locker and smirked. "Of course. I know those animal sweaters better than anyone else."

Before he could chuck his Anatomy book at the motherfucker for being delusional, he felt a tingle in the back of his neck. Like it was a sixth sense, Puck turned and saw Berry walking down the other end of the hall.

She was different. Like she'd really _changed_. It wasn't as obvious before because the shift from crazy, Broadway Rachel Berry to crazy, _Finn-is-my-endgame_ Rachel Berry was pretty gradual. Once she reverted back to crazy, Broadway Rachel Berry, pretty much anyone who paid attention could see how much she'd changed.

Puck absolutely hated the contrast between the two Rachel's.

She didn't have that confused or conflicted look on her face anymore. She wasn't carrying around that godforsaken binder with the _I-heart-Finn-Hudson_ scribbled on it. She wasn't wearing those fucking horrible dresses that went below her knees and those weird, two-inch heels that looked like they belonged to her grandma. This Rachel Berry—the _real_ Rachel Berry—was striding down the hallway, decked out in a powder-blue koala animal sweater and a gray-and-purple plaid skirt, knee socks with blue-gray monkey faces on them, and penny loafers. And the manic glint in her eye that used to kind of scare him before was back, and it turned Puck on like nothing else.

So he wasn't about to let that outfit get doused with a blue slushie.

The Hockey Idiots were making their way toward Berry while Berry herself was making her way toward Puck and Sam. There was only one thing that Puck could do, so he did it.

"It was just this big-ass snowman, dude! It was _huge_!" Puck said, throwing out his arms just as Rick/Dick/Ugly-Mullet came up beside him.

Four things happened simultaneously: Puck's wrist knocked the blue slushie into Rick/Dick/Ugly-Mullet's face, the 20lb Anatomy book in Puck's hand smacked into Dick's face right after the slushie, the hallway burst into laughter, and Karofsky walked past.

"THE FUCK, PUCKERMAN?" Rick/Dick/Ugly-Mullet demanded furiously, wiping slushie from his eyes.

"Calm your flaring herpes, Dick," Puck said calmly. "It was an accident."

"Bullshit!" Dick cried before turning to his old hockey teammate. "Karofsky! Back me up here, dude!"

Karofsky didn't even look at Puck, Sam, or Berry, who'd come up next to them. He didn't have to.

"It was an accident, Rick," he said simply. "Don't be such a drama queen."

Then he nodded at Puck and walked off toward his next class as the other students still watching the show broke out the phones and cameras.

"You might want to go wash that off, Rick," Berry said, sounding totally concerned. "You don't want that blue dye to sit in your hair. Who knows what vomit-inducing color it'll turn into next."

Dick glared at the three gleeks before shoving through his cronies and stalking off to the locker rooms.

Puck smirked and turned to look down at Berry, slinging his arm around her shoulders. "Hey, Berry. Long time no see."

She frowned a little. "Noah, what are you talking about? You saw me yesterday."

He bent down to her ear and said, "I haven't seen _you_ in a couple of years, Rachel."

It was either his words, his proximity, or the fact that he called her by her full name without being in the presence of her fathers that completely threw her off because one second she was scowling up at him and the next, her mouth had dropped and her eyes were wide.

Puck chuckled and punched Sam in the arm. "See you around, Evans."

Then he turned back to Rachel, pulled his arm off her shoulders to tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow, and steered her toward her next class. The shock of his gesture jerked her back into reality, and a deep vibration started in the base of his stomach when she gripped his bicep with her other hand and gently rubbed her thumb against the sleeve of his shirt.

"What brought on the wardrobe change, Berry?" he asked to try and get himself to stop dwelling on the fact that the last time they walked like this, they ended up making out in her bedroom again.

"A long talk with Brittany, actually," she answered.

Puck paused. _Oh, God, she better not have said anything about—_

“It was mostly about the absence of my animal sweaters.”

Oh, thank _fuck_.

"It wasn’t so bad. I quite missed these," she said, running one hand over her koala bear with a fond smile.

He smirked. "I missed your sweaters too."

She smiled and ducked her head bashfully. Shit, she's got him using words like _bashfully_ now? Jesus. "We also talked about a lot of things, actually. She harangued me into going with her for pudding, but because of my veganism, I managed to distract her from ever noticing that I wasn't eating. Anyway, she practically _lectured_ me."

Puck frowned. "About what?"

"She said that I shouldn't stop wearing my sweaters," she answered, grimacing in confusion a little. "I'm fairly sure it was a metaphor for me to not change myself for someone, but the point got muddled with a bizarre litany of animals, skirt designs, and patterns for knee socks."

Puck just smiled. Brittany's metaphors were seriously growing on him.

"I promised her to always have an animal sweater and adorably-patterned pair of knee socks on hand for the rest of my life, of course, but I appreciated that she cared enough to tell me that," Berry continued. "I suppose after being alienated for most of my high school career for dressing like what Santana called 'a fantasy of a Japanese businessman with a very dark specific fetish,' it's a little disconcerting to hear my primary tormentors encouraging me not to change."

"You were like a _selfish_ kind of annoying back then," Puck explained. "We kinda wanted to push you into a vat of Nickelodeon goo 'cause that meant we wouldn't have to hear you ranting about how you were better than us."

"I never—"

He gave her a look.

"Okay, well, I never _explicitly_ said that I was—"

The look got darker.

"Okay, all right."

"The fact that you wore these weird combinations of grandma-gear and sexy-schoolgirl outfits just sort of made you an even bigger target," he finished.

"Well, then what changed?" she asked him with this sad expression that he _really_ wanted to kiss away.

"Your selfish-type of annoying morphed into a batshit-crazy-determined kind of annoying," he answered with a shrug. "We kinda saw that you were actually pretty nice and hot and that you were just a psycho for Broadway and not that you're _actually_ , full-on _Girl-Interrupted_ psycho."

His explanation seemed to sit well with her since she grinned up at him brightly and squeezed his arm a little tighter.

Oh, sure, she got Sandy Ryerson fired, but that son of a bitch was creepy. Plus he seemed a lot more content with his life as a drug dealer. And, okay, yeah, she sent Sunshine Corazon to a crack house, but in her defense, Berry _is_ batshit crazy and dead-set on Broadway. Anyone who even toes the red carpet on the way to her dreams should expect having said toe chopped off. Plus she apologized, right?

She could be a bitch, a solo-hog, and a borderline sociopath, but she had her moments. Everyone thought she was only ever just a selfish bitch, but he knew better. He remembered the way she handed over the solo to Mercedes that first year. He remembered the way she actually forgave Quinn for slapping her in the face. He remembered how supportive she was to Kurt, how she talked Mercedes down from the girl's very first diva fit where he’d been recruited to steal some puppies. She verbally massacred Nazario for Santana. She's done so _fucking much_ for these people. Hell, he loved h— _it_. He loved _it._

It meant that she was strong. It meant that knew she what she wanted, and the _ain't-nothing-standing-in-my-way_ Rachel Berry was back, but that she also learned a couple of lessons along the way. She wouldn't let anyone step on her again, but she also wouldn't step on anyone either.

She grew up.

Even if she's not _completely_ grown up, she'd come a pretty long way from the Rachel who used to make him want to light himself on fire.

She was a fucking star—get too close or cross her in just the wrong way, and she will incinerate you. But she's so fucking bright you can't help but look, and once you do, she'll take your damn breath away.

And stars with her talent and her passion belonged in the best school, and there was only one school that deserved her. And it sure as hell wasn't some random-ass college like NYADA. Oh, hell no. But it was already too late to submit applications and audition and shit, so he was just gonna have to convince her to transfer sometime after her freshman year or something.

Until then, he was just gonna have to focus on getting other people to their dreams too.

**~oOo~**

Puck liked Schue. He really did.

First teacher that ever gave a legitimate shit about him, first teacher that ever sat him down and genuinely—not like the others who just said it reflexively—told him, "You've got so much potential; don't throw it all away," and the first teacher that Puck ever intentionally got fired.

It all started when Bekah sat down at the breakfast table one Saturday morning. He and Sam were just eating breakfast, you know, _chillin'_. Then this chick picks up his iPhone (the one she bought him for Hanukkah) and opens up the internet. She's just scrollin', scrollin', scrollin' until she stops, flips the phone into landscape mode, and then slides it back toward him with this small, innocent smile.

The _entire time_ Puck and Sam were staring at her like she was about to announce that she bought a vial of polonium and was now in the process of infecting everyone she came into contact with.

"Read it, Noah," she said, standing up to grab herself some milk.

"Why?" Puck asked warily, glaring at the offending phone.

"Just read it, numbnuts."

Puck whipped his head around to stare at his sister. This whole Satanberry friendship was _not_ a good idea—especially since Berry was still as much of a presence in his house as before, which meant Santana often tagged along. What was shocking, though, was that Satan and Bekah never really got along until Berry came and glued them together like the cream between two Oreo cookies. It was _scary_ the way this chick was infecting his life on new levels.

Puck glanced at Sam worriedly before he picked up his phone and read the article.

"What in the ever-fruity hell am I gonna do about a random Broadway play called _'The Light in the Piazza,'_ Beks?" Puck sighed wearily, handing the phone to Sam, who frowned as he read.

"Well, it's a casting call for the lead male role," Sam said slowly, scrolling through the article. "And I don't know why this is relevant to our lives because Puck cannot fit this role. For one thing, he doesn't really look Italian."

"Send it to Anderson," Puck said.

"NO!" Bekah shrieked, lunging forward and grabbing the phone.

"Beks, what the frick?" Puck demanded, staring at his sister. "Have you lost your mind? Did all that Hannah Montana finally give you some sort of virtual lobotomy?"

Bekah huffed and rolled her eyes. "Noah, you are so _dense_! Look at the character profile! Who do you know that fits the profile almost perfectly? And don't just restrict it to guys your age."

Puck grabbed Sam's wrist and tilted the phone so he could read too.

"Dude," Sam said, "it sounds like…"

Puck didn't know whether to grimace or laugh. "Like _Schue_."

Bekah grinned. "Yep."

"Well, what are we supposed to do about this?" Puck asked, raising one eyebrow. "It's not like we can toss this on Schue's desk and tell him to pack his crap and Miss Pillsbury and then boot them off into New York City."

"Yeah, they have jobs here, Bekah," Sam pointed out.

_DING!_

" _They...have...jobs,"_ Puck echoed slowly.

Sam and Bekah both turned to watch Puck smirk evilly. They exchanged a glance and while Bekah just looked a little worried, Sam looked downright fucking horrified.

"Dude."

"What?" Puck asked innocently.

"Dude!"

"I didn't say nothin', Evans," Puck said coolly, taking another bite of his cereal.

"DUDE."

"Chill, Evans."

"DUDE! YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET SCHUE FIRED!"

Puck set his spoon down and sighed. "Look, Schue isn't gonna go to New York City if Pillsbury and his job are still hanging around here. We need to cut him off so he can go live his dream and stuff."

"But getting him fired is _stupid_!" Sam argued. "Blaine, Tina, Rory, and the others are still gonna be in glee next year, and if you get Schue fired, they're never gonna have a chance."

"They've got Shelby," Puck pointed out.

" _No!_ It won't be the same," Sam insisted. "Come on, Puck. This _really_ is not one of your better plans. This ranks higher than the pink-wig flash mob you were trying to do to get Quinn thrown into that psych ward. Beks, can you back me up here please?"

"Okay, Noah, he's right," Bekah said, walking over to set her hand on the top of Puck's head. "Look at the date of the show. It's a summer project. Mr. Schue can have the whole summer off from school to do this."

"But you _know_ he's not gonna do it as long as there is something still tying him down to Lima!" Puck insisted. "You wanna try an experiment?"

Sam frowned, and Bekah cocked an eyebrow.

**~oOo~**

"Hey, Mr. Schue!" Sam said, knocking on the slightly open door of Schue's office.

Schue looked up from his papers and smiled good-naturedly. "Hey, Sam! Come on in. So how's school been? I heard you got accepted into—"

"Oh, um, yeah!" Sam plopped down into the seat in front of the desk and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but yeah."

Schue grinned. "See? Your dyslexia isn't that much of a problem, is it?"

Sam shrugged. "I gotta work twice as hard, but, yeah. I guess I'm not an idiot after all."

Schue chuckled and leaned back in his seat. "And I'm fairly sure money won't be an issue, right? I mean, you've accumulated quite an arsenal of scholarships. Where did you find some of these?"

Sam grinned. " _Those_ you can blame on Rachel and Puck. Even before Stevie and Stacy got the jobs in California, those two were dead-set on throwing me into any college I could possibly get into, so they made sure I had enough money to actually go."

One of Schue's eyebrows rose and a smirk slowly turned up one corner of his mouth. " _Puck_ and Rachel? I mean, yeah, I expect this from Rachel, but…?"

"Puck is…just…really weird this year," Sam explained lamely.

Schue laughed and smacked his desk. "So! What did you come to see me about, Sam?"

"Oh!" Sam shuffled around until he pulled out two stapled papers and handed them to Schue. "I saw this online when I was looking up stuff for my research paper, and I thought that you might be interested. Since, after you turned down your dreams in New York to help us, I thought you'd be able to do it since it was during the summer, and school would be out during everything."

Schue took the papers and read it over with a small frown. "I don't know, Sam. There are a lot of things that teachers have to do after school ends and once it begins too."

"But you could do all that while still in New York, right? I mean, it can't be that hard."

Schue smiled, but it was obviously forced. "This seems like a great opportunity, Sam, but now isn't the right time for me. Maybe when I can get the club big enough and stable enough for someone else to take over for a little while. But with so many of you guys graduating, it's gonna be a lot of work next year. I can't afford to go off and do my own thing—not yet."

Sam nodded understandingly but scowled internally.

**~oOo~**

"Okay, fine, you were right."

Puck smirked smugly. "Told you. Schue is _dedicated_ , man. Even if the guy pisses me off to no end sometimes and can get pretty derailed with his own drama and crap, you gotta admit that he cares about us enough to try his best to get us to nationals or whatever. He's a prick, but he's a prick who cares."

"And so _firing_ him is gonna _help_ him?" Sam demanded, sliding the grilled cheese sandwich off the skillet and onto a plate, which he handed to Bekah. "I know you march to your own drum, but this is just off the rails, man. You're marching to some Martian drums."

"Why are you so dead-set on getting him fired anyway?" Bekah asked.

Puck rolled his eyes. "It's not like I want to screw the guy over. I just think that he deserves a shot at following his own dreams, you know?"

"Well, _fairy godfather,_ did you realize that you're literally putting his dreams up against his livelihood?" Sam asked sourly, flopping the other grilled cheese sandwich onto a plate for Puck. "I don't think that's your choice to make, dude. It's not cool."

Puck sighed and ripped off a bite of the sandwich. "What should I do, then?"

Sam frowned. "Does Schue even count in Brittany's little checklist for you? I thought it was just the gleeks."

"Well, she said anyone who's been in glee for over a year," Puck said. "I guess Blaine counted since he's been one of us for a while now, regardless of whether or not he was one of the Warblers before. And Schue's been with glee since the beginning, so..."

Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Does that mean you count the band too?"

Puck scoffed. "We don't talk to those guys. I don't even remember their names. No, they're not on the list."

"They were before," Bekah reminded him. "Back when you felt like being nice. Then you realized you knew next to nothing about them and then scratched them off."

Sam stared at her. "You know the list?"

She pulled a folded-up piece of paper from one of the empty cookie jars and handed it to Sam. "Yeah, it's all right here."

"With plot points too!" Sam said, impressed. "Wow, Puck, you really put a lot of thought into this..."

"What about Rachel and Brittany? They're the last two on the list, but all you have are their names," Bekah asked.

Puck snatched the list away from Sam and pocketed it. "It's a surprise."

Sam scowled. "Okay, fine. So what are you gonna do about Schue?"

It's like these people didn't trust him. His unofficial-bro _and_ his official-sis both were such faithless non-believers to the Puckasaurus cause.

"I told y'all," Puck popped the last bit of the sandwich into his mouth before standing up and grabbing his car keys. "I'm gonna go get Schue fired."

Bekah and Sam watched him wave goodbye and walk out the front door, completely unsurprised.

"Puck will be Puck," Bekah muttered. "No matter what you do or say, once he's made up his mind, he's gonna do what he wants."

Sam leaned his elbows on the counter and frowned at her. "So why is he still not making a move on Rachel? I mean, I get that he doesn't wanna start something with Finn again, but I don't think that Finn should be able to dictate what Puck or Rachel should do."

Bekah paused from taking a bite of her sandwich and set it back down on her plate. She was thirteen not _stupid_. She could hear the unspoken "and neither should you" that was tagged on to the end of Sam's comment.

"And if the roles were reversed," Sam continued, oblivious to Bekah's attitude shift, "Finn would've asked out Rachel a day after she and Puck broke up."

"That's the catch, isn't it?" Bekah said with a small smirk. "If the roles were reversed, that's what _Finn_ would do. This is _Noah_ we're talking about though, remember, Sammy? Noah does what he wants, regardless of what I tell him. That tells you that he made the decision himself. I'm not dictating his life, and for that matter, neither is Finn."

Sam frowned, and Bekah smiled a little wider.

"Look, my brother is..." she sighed, "...a _jackass_."

"Bekah!"

"But he's not a _complete_ _asshole_."

" _Bekah!"_

"Oh, shut up, Sammy. This is the best way I can describe him. He's a jackass in that he's got no tact, no discretion, and a serious problem with his libido, but he's not an asshole in that he's just straight-up _mean_ ," she explained.

"You know too many big words. _Libido_?"

"I watch too much TV. Shut up," she growled and then continued. "He was at one point an asshole, yeah, but now he's not. He's...different. He's more Noah than Puck. And that makes all the difference. He cares about his friends—no matter how much he complains about this little project with Brittany, the fact of the matter is that he's _still_ _doing_ _it_. He still puts in so much effort to help y'all because he genuinely cares. You can blame that on Beth."

She studied Sam's face, but he was practically mirroring her expression, so she couldn't really tell if he was understanding her or not.

"And Finn is different from everyone else. They were really close before, you know? Before all this happened. Yeah, he put in a heck of a lot of effort for you and Mike, but he's doing a lot more for Finn because of their history. Noah put aside his feelings for Rachel because even though he practically called first dibs, he _really_ does owe Finn for knocking up Quinn. This is him officially trying to make amends."

She picked up her sandwich again and took a bite. "Besides, Rachel is, like, _it_ for him. He wants a legit relationship, so he's gonna do this the right way. Puck is probably one of the biggest opponents of drama. Drama means he has to deal with things that make him want to punch people in the face, so he wants to keep that to a minimum. If it means waiting until Finny's over a thousand miles away, he'll wait a couple more months. This is as close as to a full apology Finn is ever gonna get 'cause he's kind of been a douche."

Sam grimaced a little. "I know he's my best friend and everything, but no one flips the switch like that so easily. Especially not Puck."

"Who said that was _easy_? Junior year was pretty hard on him, you know?" Bekah pointed out softly. "Noah is really trying his best to do right by Beth, by me, Ma, Rachel, and even _you_. He spent years thinking all he was ever gonna grow up to be was Dad. Now that there are so many people invested in him, he's, like, _desperate_ to not let anyone down."

"He told you all of that?" Sam asked, a little shocked.

Bekah scoffed. " _No_. I should be, like, a shrink or something 'cause the amount of reading between the lines I've been doing in the last year or so is just _ridiculous._ I _know_ my brother. I have, like, a master's degree in all things Noah Puckerman. How? 'Cause I pay attention to him. I see how he reacts to things, and he thinks I'm annoying and semi-useless. But just like everyone underestimated him, he underestimates me."

Sam's focused expression softened into one of understanding and more than a little shock. "You're really deep for a thirteen year-old, you know that?"

She shrugged. "My brother is emotionally stunted and kind of an idiot. I have to compensate."

Sam laughed and then eyed her proudly. "You _really_ know him, huh?"

She smiled fondly and nodded. "He's my brother. Mom works a lot, so I end up spending an _obscene_ amount of time with Noah. I pick things up here and there, you know? He took care of me, so I do my best to take care of him when I can. Defending his decisions seems to fall under that category, so, yeah. Besides, I watch a lot of crime shows and dramas. I should totally become profiler."

Sam wrapped and arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. "You're a good sister. Even if you watch too much TV."

The Puckerman Smirk™ curved onto her mouth, making her hazel eyes glitter. "I'm a _badass_ sister, Evans. Get it right."

**~oOo~**

"Morning, Figgy!"

Figgins jumped and glared up at Puck incredulously as the latter plopped down into one of the seats in front of the desk.

"What up?"

Figgins yanked off his glasses and stared at Puck, openmouthed. "Mr. Puckerman, what—? Why aren't you in class?" he spluttered incredulously.

"Free period," Puck answered dismissively. "Hypothetically, what do you think Sylvester's reaction will be if you tell her you fired Schue?"

Figgins glared at him. "Mr. Puckerman—"

"The sooner you answer my question, Figs, the sooner I'm outta your…" Puck trailed off as he grimaced at Figgins's head, "… _hair_."

"I don't see how this is at all relevant. You cannot just waltz into my office at your leisure and ask me useless questions when you have finals. Free periods are used as _study halls_ , Mr. Puckerman, and you must maintain your grades if you really wish to pursue your acceptance to—"

" _Irrelevant,_ " Puck said through his teeth and steered the conversation back to his territory. "She'd orgasm on the spot, right?"

" _Mr. Puckerman!"_

"You know it's true, Figs," Puck said, smirking.

"Regardless!" Figgins spluttered. "And I am your _principal_! Address me accordingly!"

Puck rolled his eyes and sighed, "All _right_ , _Mr._ Figs, calm down."

Figgins sighed and just gave up. "Puck, what on _earth_ are you talking about?"

"Sylvester would just be a lot less psycho in general, right?" Puck continued. "The way she was before Mr. Schue took over glee and got a portion of her Cheerios funding?"

"Of course, but—"

"She'd actually leave you alone for the summer, right? No diabolical plans to take over the school, no hour-long tirades from a bullhorn at all hours of the night and day, no blackmailing you with—"

"I get the point! What are you trying to _say_ , Mr. Puckerman?!" Figgins finally snapped.

Puck smiled. "I need you to fire Mr. Schue and then rehire him just in time to get started on the next school year."

Figgins gave him the typical WTF-look. _"Why?"_

Puck sighed as he tossed down the small packet of papers about the audition and pushed it toward Figgins. "I've been doing a little project where I do nice shit for people in glee. Schue's my next victim."

"Why…?" Figgins breathed in confusion, glancing back and forth from Puck to the papers.

"It's only for the summer," Puck explained. "Tried to get him to do it before, but he's too caught up in Lima. He's gotta cut his ties to get to the Big Apple, you know?"

"But _why_?" Figgins asked again with this hopelessly lost expression that made Puck wonder how the hell this man became principal.

Puck shrugged. "My graduation present to him."

Figgins frowned and raised an eyebrow at him as he leaned back in his seat. "I admit that I would really enjoy a relatively peaceful summer, but I cannot just…" He raised his hands and did a couple of air quotes, "… _fire_ my employees on a whim. I like Schuester—enough to go along with your little plan—but the board will not just let me fire and rehire someone for reasons like this."

Puck frowned and thought about it for a second. "Well, then just _tell_ him that you're firing him, but don't actually do it."

"I can't just fire the man for no reason!"

Puck smirked. "Just leave that to me, Figgy."

Figgins stared at him like Puck had lost his mind before breaking his gaze and folded his hands on his desk. "Well, Mr. Puckerman, that certainly explains your acceptance to—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Puck grumbled. "Thanks for having so much faith in me, Figs."

**~oOo~**

"Shelbeeeh!" Puck crooned, striding into the classroom. "What up?"

Shelby looked up from the piano and smirked. "What do you want, Puck?"

"Your body," he quipped cheekily, leaning against the top of the piano.

She grimaced and cringed. "You want _Rachel's_."

He shrugged. "You two look alike enough. She's just, like, _two upgrades better_ than you. No offense."

"How could I _possibly_ not take offense to that?" she laughed, sounding so much like Rachel that it kind of shocked Puck a little.

He shrugged. "So I got a favor to ask."

"Of course," Shelby said, chuckling as she nodded and turned back to her sheet music. "What is it?"

"You still gonna be here next year?" he asked. "I mean, like, next _school_ year? You're not…leaving or anything, right?"

She nodded slowly at first. "Yeah, I think I am. I feel stable here. I have a job, I made friends with Will and Shannon and Emma, and once you get past Sue Sylvester's psychosis, she's actually pretty funny. As much as I want to expose Beth to the arts, I think she'll do very well in a small town rather than a big city like New York. I can raise her with a straight set of morals and keep her sheltered enough from all the crap that happens in the city. Besides, I think it's a lot safer here."

Puck smiled. Yeah, he made the right choice.

"So, yeah," she concluded. "I'm staying in Lima."

"Good!" Puck said brightly. "That means you can you fill in for Schue the week school starts next year, right?"

She dropped her stack of sheet music. "Wait, _what_?"

He sighed. "Welcome to Operation Thundering Blitzkrieg of Jewish Puckleberry. Shut up; don't laugh. I wasn't the one who came up with the name."

"That doesn't make it sound any less _stupid_ ," Shelby laughed.

"Oh, just _shut up_ ," he groused. "Listen up, this is the plan…"

**~oOo~**

Sam couldn't believe he was doing this. He could _not_ believe he was _freaking_ doing this. Out of everything else he could be doing, he _had_ to be doing _this_. He had a _lunch_ Mrs. Puckerman made for him to eat. He had a _penultimate day of high school_ to get through. He had a _permanent record_ to keep from being tarnished. But what was he doing instead?

_This._

He poked his head into the open door of the guidance counselor's office. "Uh, hey, Miss Pillsbury?"

Miss Pillsbury looked up from her pamphlets with those humongous Bambi eyes. If a palulukan was in the area, Pillsbury and her doe eyes would totally be mistaken for a yerik, and she'd be a delicious red-haired dinner. "Yes, Sam, what is it?"

"Um." He was going to hell for this. "There's a girl crying in the janitor's closet, and I didn't know who else to call but the guidance counselor, you know? So, counselor, can you guide?"

"Oh, no," she breathed, jumping up from her chair. "It must be one of the Cheerios again. Sue just keeps pushing and pushing those girls. I swear, I don't know how they put up with Sue's incessant screams and rants about the most abhorrent things."

She brushed through the door, jogging toward the closet with Sam right at her heels. She came up to the closed supply room door and yanked it open and then frowned in confusion when she saw that it was empty.

"She must have lef— _ACK!_ "

Sam came up right behind her and—just because he was already going to hell for this, he wasn't about to land himself in a deeper circle—hip-bumped her instead of pushing her into the supply room and slammed the door shut, muttering prayers of forgiveness the entire time.

A quiet knock sounded, and his resolve almost broke. She sounded like she was trying _so_ hard to be calm. "Sam? Sam, what happened?"

He covered his hand over his eyes in an expression of pure guilt and stifled a groan. Then he called through the door, "Miss Pillsbury! Why did you lock the door? Miss Pillsbury, open the door!"

He even jiggled the Puck-rigged door handle just for effect.

"Sam? The door isn't opening. It's locked. Why is it slippery in here? Where is the light switch? What in _heaven's_ name is making this floor so slippery?"

"Lord Jesus, forgive me," Sam moaned, heading toward the designated meeting place. He turned the corner, spotted Puck, and wearily gave him the thumbs-up to go into Phase B.

"I hate you, dude," he said, his low voice rebounding through the empty hallway. "I'm never gonna be able to look Miss Pillsbury in the eye anymore.

"Suck it up, Evans," Puck responded. "Schue is totally gonna put us in his speech when he gets one of those damned Tony awards. This is totally gonna be worth it."

Puck chortled evilly as he saluted Sam and headed toward Schue's office.

"Mr. Schue! Mr. Schue!" he cried, bursting into the dude's office. He should be getting an Oscar for this. Damn. "There's something leaking out of the janitor's closet, and I can't find the janitor!"

"W-What?" Schue demanded disbelievingly. "Puck, are you sure it's not just cleaning fluid?"

"Schue, it's _red_!"

He'd never seen the man run so fast. He practically _crawled_ over the desk and leaped over the chairs before blitzing Puck out of the way. It was hilarious. He was totally going to Jew-hell for this, but, holy shit, it was so worth it.

Schue screeched to a halt when he saw the red puddle leaking out of the janitor's supply room and then broke into a sprint the rest of the way. He wrenched the door open and didn't even get to yell out an "Emma? What are you doing here?" before he was unceremoniously shoved inside, the door smacking against his ass as it shut.

"Emma?"

"Will?"

"What is—"

"Where is—"

"The door—"

"The blood on the floor—"

"THE BLOOD? ON THE FLOOR?"

He was horrible. He was so fucking horrible. He was taking baby-steps to become the next Voldemort, but, Jesus Christ, this was just ten shades of hilarious.

Sam glared as he came out from where he was hiding behind the nearby corner and shook his head disappointedly. "Dude, this is _totally_ the last time I'm helping you. You're gonna bring Miss Pillsbury's OCD back."

"Emma!"

"Will, the blood!"

"Emma, calm down! It's not blood! It's just—"

"Someone's life essence is a growing puddle on the floor, Will! It's seeping into my shoes!"

"It's _paint_ , Emma!"

"We _suck_ , Puck. We really, really _suck_ ," Sam groaned.

Puck scoffed and gestured for Sam to shut up and listen. "Just wait for it. I'm always right."

"Will, the blood!"

"Emma! Emma! Just look at me! Emma!"

"I can't! It's— _mmph_!"

Puck smirked evilly and crossed his arms over his chest. The unmistakable noises of _kissing_ filtered out the door, making Sam considerably more uncomfortable with every second while Puck's smirk just kept getting wider and wider.

"I told you, dude. I'm a genius. Now stand watch. I gotta go get Figgy."

Sam sighed and rolled his eyes as Puck jogged off. Then he jumped and grimaced when he heard a _thud_ and a moan.

"Puckerman, I'm _so_ telling your sister about this."

Meanwhile, Puck casually tossed a wink at Figgins's secretary as he strolled into the principal's office with a self-satisfied smirk.

"'Sup, Figgy?"

Figgins sighed and seemed to mutter a prayer up to the ceiling. It was like a ritual every time Puck came in. "What is it _now_ , Mr. Puckerman?"

Puck shrugged. "Remember how you said you couldn't just fake-fire Schue willy-nilly?"

Figgins suddenly looked absolutely horrified when he lurched out of his desk chair. "What have you done?"

All these bitches were just so damn dramatic. He rolled his eyes and motioned for Figgins to follow him.

"Would you calm down, Figs? Come on. Seems that two of your teachers are getting kinky with some leftover paint in janitor's supply room. Didn't peg Miss Pillsbury for the type, but apparently, Schue's got a thing for red."

**~oOo~**

Needless to say, Schue chewed the fuck out of Puck. Trouty Mouth had managed to blow shit and escape any form of scolding or punishment 'cause Bambi was too traumatized by the paint-not-blood to remember that Evans had been the one to knock her into the supply room in the first place. So after Schue popped outta Figgy's office looking like he'd been whacked in the face with a mop and then thrown into a wall, he grabbed Puck by the collar, dragged him to his office, and just laid into him.

Honestly? Most of the shit Schue was spewing didn't even register because for some bizarre reason, Puck was just way too absorbed in wondering if the guy's hair would _actually_ feel like Brillo.

Oh, yeah, sure, he caught the gist of Schue's rant. Dude finally pulled his brain cells together to realize that it was all staged to get him to go to that audition in New York and that Sam was gonna get it as soon as White Chocolate decided to grow some balls and stop hiding out in the weight room. Then he started on this ten-minute-long tirade about how even though he appreciated the gesture, Puck shouldn't have taken the decision out of his hands and that he was a grown man that couldn't just jet off for some twenty-year-old dream. Technically, Puck hadn't taken the decision out of Schue's hands. He just manipulated shit so Schue would actually be forced to decide and that Schue was kind of a selfish bastard sometimes, so he should drop the altruistic bullshit.

When he said so, Schue looked thoroughly shocked that Puck knew the world "altruistic" before he snapped back to his point and started off on _another_ lecture-combination of not cussing and butting into other people's lives. Unfortunately, that led to:

"Why do you _care_ anyway? I'd expect this from...well, I never expected this from anyone let alone _you_."

Puck scowled and danced around the subject for a little while before he finally flat-out told him that Brittany forced him to do all this nice shit for people and that he kinda actually got into it 'cause the jerks weren't _completely_ annoying and he didn't _fully_ hate them—which was as close to saying that he _liked_ glee as Puck would ever get. Thankfully that kind of softened Schue up for him to change the subject.

Sadly, it was not a subject change Puck liked.

He just _really_ needed to get out of this goddamned office.

"I'm really proud of you, Puck," he said.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

(But fuck y'all if you ever tell anyone that he kind of felt a little jolt that _someone_ was proud of him.)

"I mean, look how far you've come," Schue continued. "You got into—"

"I know, dude. No need to remind me," Puck mumbled rubbing his hand through his 'hawk.

"Plus you got that one scholarship!" Schue said, grinning. "Emma told me how you auditioned and got it! I can't believe you didn't tell anyone about it. That is a major accomplishment."

"Don't sound so shocked," Puck grumbled. "I mean, I helped Evans with a couple of his scholarships, so it's not like I don't know how to look for 'em."

"Well, I have to be! I knew you had some serious guitar skills, but also I knew that you'd immediately shut me down if I tried to encourage you to pursue it."

Puck nodded in agreement. Man spoke truth.

"So you can imagine how shocked I was to see that you _are_ pursuing it now. Out of all the other gleeks, Puck, you're the exact person I wanted to help when I started in glee."

Puck wasn't entirely sure of his expression 'cause all of a sudden, Schue put his hands up defensively.

"Not _you_ specifically, but someone _like_ you," Schue corrected himself. "No one—and I mean, _no one—_ would've ever imagined that you'd join glee, Puck. But look where are you now! The solos you've done this year alone outnumber—"

"The times you walked outta your house without gunking up your hair?"

Schue shot him a longsuffering look.

"It's true, Schue."

"What I was _saying_ ," Schue enunciated pointedly, "is that you went from this—"

"Badass motherfucker?"

"— _asshole_ —"

"Damn. Just 'cause you ain't my teacher no more don't mean you gotta break out the _mean_ , Schue."

"—to a—"

"An even more badass motherfucker?"

"— _legitimate_ _male_ _lead_. You and Sam are right up in the ranks with Blaine and Finn, and I've never been more proud."

Puck scoffed. "Oh, please. Nothing makes you more proud than when you see Finnocence up on that stage pooping out one of your eighties faves. Yeah, pooping. Veins in his neck start popping out like he's constipated."

Schue reached forward and whacked Puck on the head with the rag he'd been using to clean the paint off his shoe. " _No_. What makes me proud is when I see you kids break out of your shells and become these amazing, awe-inspiring performers not because something _forces_ you to but because you actually want it. You are most definitely not the same person you were three years ago."

"No shit," Puck mumbled.

Then Schue sighed and opened one of his desk drawers, pulled out a file, and slid a packet of papers toward Puck.

"I was gonna give this to you after the graduation ceremony tomorrow night, but since I'm not gonna have this office then, now seems like a good time."

Puck reached forward, giving Schue a wary look before grabbing the papers and looking it ov—

"What the _fuck_?"

"I had Artie and his club film the entire talent showcase, and I submitted each video for consideration. I didn't want to tell you guys and get your hopes up, and I implore you to keep this a secret too. You can tell them that you got a scholarship, but don't tell them I had anything to do with it."

The papers in Puck's hands shook so violently that the words were blurring. "Dude, this is _fifty_ - _thousand_ _bucks_!"

Schue nodded proudly. "You are _so_ talented, Puck. When I wrote out your story, they were even _more_ impressed. I mean, it also helped that you got Shelby Corcoran's letter of recommendation—"

"WHAT?"

Schue laughed. "You don't get it, do you? You're the perfect example for breaking out of molds. You _deserve_ this. Don't think Shelby, Figgins, and I manipulated things in your favor either. The scholarship board themselves saw the stark contrast between who you were three years ago—tossing slushies, throwing around kids, sleeping around, and beating up anyone who _breathed_ funny—to who you are now. You got into this amazing college in spite of all the black marks on your permanent record."

"I seduced the interviewer," Puck explained with a shrug.

"You picked up the pace this year, Puck, and not many people can pull off what you did. You think no one's noticed, but practically _all_ of your teachers are impressed with you."

Puck snorted. "Well, yeah. I go from not even showing up to class to pulling A's and B's."

"Exactly! You're the poster boy for drastic change. You're still kind of a jackass, but there are some serious cracks in your armor now."

Puck finally tore his eyes from the five figures and gave Schue a withering look. "Say what now?"

"I heard about Rachel's Barbravention from last year, I heard that you were the one to drag Stevie and Stacy to that audition, I know you staged a fight to get Mercedes back to the New Directions, I know Quinn's attitude change had _something_ to do with you, Finn's sudden insight about how to find his purpose in the world didn't manifest of his own accord, you kept Kurt from becoming the laughingstock of all the fashion schools in the country, you stole all of Artie's other acceptance letters so he'd be forced to go to Columbia, you nudged Santana out of the closet and managed to forge an unlikely friendship between two enemies at the same time, and I know for a fact that Mike Chang's epic proposal was another one of your ideas."

Puck scowled. "Who's the rat?"

Schue smiled. "Your best friend."

Of _fucking_ course.

"Trouty Mouth's gonna have some seriously busted fish lips once I'm through with him."

"He's proud of you, Puck. He's proud and he's grateful," Schue said earnestly. "And he's not the only one. You have a solid group of friends, even if you don't think so. Blaine and Kurt were the ones to suggest the scholarship with you in mind, probably after hearing you play a song on your guitar."

"The _hell_?" Puck spluttered.

"Yeah, I think your series of bizarrely cloaked good deeds really affected them, you know? You're a good man, Noah. Your father may have tarnished your name, but you've fixed it up to something he could never dream of living up to."

Puck sat back in the chair, still clutching the papers in his hands. _We are pleased to present to Noah Elijah Puckerman..._

The only thing he ever really expected of being presented with was a prison sentence. Or, you know, test results telling him he had a buffet of STD's. Or that he fathered, like, eight other kids. Or that he indirectly set off the chain of events that started the Apocaly—

Okay, no more _Supernatural_.

"You have a really kickass group of friends, Puck," Schue said, grinning.

"Yeah," Puck muttered with a vague smile. "They're _numbah_ _wah_."

Schue stood up and Puck, seeing that it was a prime opportunity for him to haul ass, stood up too. "You've got one hell of a girl too, you know?"

Puck spun around with a horrified expression that made Schue bust out laughing...that _prick_.

"Even if you're not officially dating, everyone can see it. She's good for you, and you're good for her in ways that Finn could never contribute to a relationship."

"What are you? The love doctor all of a sudden?" Puck snorted. "If you are, you're a fucking quack."

“Hey," Schue said. "I'm in a stable relationship now."

"Yeah. Your crazy and her crazy balances the shit out of your relationship."

Schue laughed and in a moment of pure, embarrassing randomness, he grabbed Puck into a hug. Puck stiffened and just stared at the diploma on Schue's wall while the guy's curly hair rubbed against his cheek. Surprisingly, it _didn't_ feel like Brillo.

He tried to focus on that. He tried to focus on the non-Brillo-ness of Schue's hair especially when the guy said five words:

"I'm proud of you, Noah."

Contrary to popular belief, Elijah Puckerman left his family when the son of a bitch was stone-cold sober. That just made it hurt, like, 1,047,572,910,375 times more. He'd picked up Bekah from daycare and came home early—the first time in _years_ —and Puck was just psyched out of his mind that Dad wasn't drunk off his ass. Ma was working a late shift, so they watched _Goonies_ while Bekah played with her dolls on Dad's lap. Once the movie was over, Dad actually made spaghetti—with little cut-up hot dogs and an insane amount of cheese. When dinner, baths, and toothbrushing shit was all over, he helped Dad tuck Bekah into her bed before Dad swung Puck over his shoulder and zoomed them into Puck's room. When Puck was tucked under the covers, Dad leaned forward, kissed him on the forehead, hugged him tight and said, "I'm proud of you, Noah."

Puck said his goodnight, rolled over, and fell asleep, knowing that tomorrow was gonna be a great day.

When he woke up at 3 AM, thirsty as all fuck because of the obscene amount of cheese he had earlier, he stumbled into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. He was standing on the stool in front of the sink when he saw out through the window that Dad's truck was gone.

First he was just sad and disappointed because he was pretty sure that the guy went off to the liquor store again, but then he noticed one thing that his seven year-old brain registered as a sign that his dad was gone for good: the acoustic guitar that sat in the corner of the living room was gone. The acoustic guitar that Freddy Mercury himself had signed.

Dad had loved that motherfucking guitar and would only let Puck play it if he was sitting on Dad's lap.

And it was gone. The stand was empty.

He distinctly remembered feeling hot. He was just hot _all fucking over_. Every inch of his skin was burning, but inside—in his stomach, his throat, his nose, his chest—it was just _cold_ and it _stung_. And he could not, for the life of him, understand what the fuck was going on. He thought he was gonna fucking die, and even though he knew the man was gone, he still called out, "Dad! Dad, it _hurts_!"

Ma found him curled up in a ball in the corner of the kitchen when she got home at 6 AM. Bekah had stumbled out of bed too, and she was sitting on his lap, sucking on a bottle of milk like Puck's world hadn't just fallen the fuck apart.

So to have this guy with the non-Brillo-hair and the same build as his dad hugging him and saying the last words he ever heard his dad say to him?

Yeah, it was just hella weird.

But…it didn't suck completely.

"Um…sorry for getting you fired, but you're still gonna have to go to that audition, you know?"

**~oOo~**

For the last time, the gleeks were assembled in the choir room, lazing around in the chairs, waiting for Schue to walk in one last time.

"But that's _absurd_! Why would they fire Mr. Schue on the second-to-last day of school? It's ridiculous!" Berry cried indignantly, throwing her hands up and almost smacking Puck in the face. "What did he do?"

"No one knows, and Figgins ain't tellin' either," Mercedes said, shrugging. "He's here today, but he's not gonna be back next year."

"What's gonna happen to glee club then?" Rory asked worriedly. "Will it be disbanded? Will Sue Sylvester absorb us into the Cheerios as a live band?"

"No, I'm pretty sure she'd probably just use us as cannon fodder," Blaine sighed.

"You'd be some kickass cannon fodder though," Puck pointed out. "Exploding rainbows and shit."

Blaine threw his head back and laughed when Kurt smacked Puck on the back of the head with a folder.

"I'm not sure if that's offensive or just stupid, Puckerman," Kurt scoffed.

"I meant it with all the love in the world, Hummel," Puck said earnestly, with his hand over his heart.

This time, Berry was the one to smack him in the chest with the back of her hand even though she was smiling. He really did mean it with all the love in the world. Blaine and Kurt were fucking awesome.

"Come on, guys," Finn said. "We have to think of something to do for Mr. Schue!"

"We should get him butter," Brittany said. "Coach Sylvester said Mr. Schue needs butter to survive."

"Brit, Sue wanted to shoot you out of a fucking cannon. I don't think she's your go-to reference for someone's well-being," Puck pointed out.

"I say we raid his apartment, steal all of his sweater vests, undo the stitching, and give all the fabric away to a third world country," Santana offered.

"Oh, my God, San, that actually sounded like a nice thing to do," Quinn said, shocked.

Santana just looked fucking horrified. "Goddamnit! Damn you, Berry. _Damn you_."

"Well, _I'm sorry_ , Santana, for trying to turn you into a civilized human being," Berry sighed.

"You're fucking _brainwashing_ me, you evil little gremlin!"

"Focus, guys," Finn said, jumping up from his seat and coming to stand in front of the group. "We should really do something nice for him. I mean, he's been with us through almost everything. I think we owe him."

"But _what_?" Artie asked. "‘To Sir, With Love’ part deux? Maybe mash it up with ‘My Life Would Suck Without You?’"

"Oh, God. We're always singing to this guy," Santana grumbled.

"Chills," Puck said, raising his hands for everyone to listen to him. "I got this shit covered."

"Language, Noah," Berry chided.

"Hush, midget. Trust me, we don't need to get anything for Schue."

"What did you do this time?" Hummel demanded, terrified.

"Calm your pompadour, Hummel," Puck said soothingly. "All I did was give him an ad for a job."

And cut his ties in one town so he could go to the city without any worries and shit, but if he said that, Berry would grab a guitar and slam it down over his head.

"God Almighty, Puckerman, you are fucking _useless_ ," Santana groaned.

"Santana!" Berry cried. "Don't be mean!"

"How 'bout you go gnaw on your razor-riddled weave, Satan?" Puck retorted.

"Noah!" Berry cried, whipping her head around to look at him again as Sam, Blaine, and Mike nearly fell off their seats from laughing so hard.

"At least I didn't cuss, Berry!" Puck said defensively. "And it wasn't just some random job! It's an audition for a Broadway play!"

"Crazy white boy say _what now_?" Mercedes shrieked.

"Come on, Puck, it's the last day of school, not April Fool's," Artie said.

"No, you guys, it's true," Sam chirped. "It's like about pizza that lights up or something."

" _The Light at the Piazza_?" Berry and Kurt screeched simultaneously.

Kurt gripped his folder until the sides were starting to scrunch. "Oh, my God, now that I think about it—"

Berry picked up where he left off, "—he'd be absolutely perfect for—"

"—the role of Fabrizio Nacarelli!" they both screeched at the same time.

Then they burst into a whole fucking scene, and Puck just tuned the shit outta them because even though he's ass over eyebrows crazy for this chick, he cannot keep up when she's jabbering at 9,000 words per minute about something he neither knows nor cares about.

It was Tina, though, who leaned forward and set her hand on Puck's shoulder to whisper, "You are the nicest, most awesome badass I've ever even heard of, Puck."

He hardly ever interacted with the chick, but for some bizarre, mushy reason, it was the nicest thing he ever heard anyone say. So he promptly turned to the chick's fiancé and punched him in the knee.

"She's my _fiancée_ , dude!" Mike protested, kicking the back of Puck's chair with his other foot. "Of course I'm gonna tell her!"

"Is there anyone left who _doesn't_ know?" Puck hissed, glancing at Berry, who was still completely absorbed in her fangirling episode with Hummel.

Quinn laughed from where she sat on Kurt's other side. "Only the girl you're doing this for and the guy you stole her from."

Puck scowled and turned back to the front just in time to see Shelby walk in with a curly, blonde-haired baby in her arms.

"DIBS!" Puck immediately barked, jumping out of his seat and making _gimme_ -motions to Shelby.

She and gleeks laughed as he practically snatched Beth away and jogged back over to his seat next to Berry. Sam switched with Quinn so she could be on Puck's other side right as Mr. Schue and Miss Pillsbury walked in. Beth grinned toothlessly, her head swiveling back and forth from Rachel, Puck, and Quinn and then back again.

"Hi, honey," Rachel sang as she tickled Beth's chin.

"Poke her under her ear, Rach," Quinn said, playing with one of Beth's hands.

Beth screeched and squirmed when Berry kept poking and tickling according to Quinn's directions, and it was the most weird-ass shit watching his baby mama and his girl interact. If there was one person who could get these two in a room without having a WWE Smackdown break out, it would be Beth. Okay, that was a lie. They’d forged some bizarre friendship that must've been part of the domino effect of having Berry be friends with Satan.

It was just weird and scary and did not bode well for him _at all_.

"Hey, guys," Schue said, standing at the front next to Pillsbury while Shelby sat next to Brittany and Mercedes. "I'm sure you've all heard what happened."

"And while I'm sorry that today will be the very last day those curls of buttery goodness will grace the halls of this sad, narrow-minded, pathetic little school, can I just point out that I expected this to have happened a _long_ time ago?"

"SANTANA!" Berry shrieked. Beth just laughed.

"Oh, don't shove that microphone stand up into your ass again, Berry! I'm just saying that I'm surprised Coach Sylvester didn't manipulate shit to get you fired sooner," Santana said defensively. "You were all thinking it."

"Satan! Language!" Puck barked, clamping his hands on both sides of Beth's head.

"Coming from Emperor Potty Mouth himself!" Santana retorted.

All it took was Berry whipping her hair around to glare at Santana.

"Okay, _fine_ , I'll keep it G!"

"Girl speaks the truth," Artie said guiltily. "It was either Sue would get you fired or stage an elaborate accident where you died or ended up in a coma."

Schue just shrugged. He'd been thinking it too. "Okay, so I've arranged things with Miss Corcoran. She'll be next year's New Directions director, so I'm sure you guys who'll be left will be in good hands."

Brittany threw her arms around Shelby and nuzzled her head against the woman's shoulder. "The almost-best! I guess it's good that Lord Tubbington didn't get the job. He would've brought the world down to its knees."

"Brit, you know you're graduating too, right?" Finn reminded her.

The blonde suddenly looked crestfallen and Santana smacked Finn upside the head. "For crying out loud, Hudson! Now look what you've done!"

"Who is Lord Tubbington?" Shelby asked, wrapping her arms around Brittany's hunched-over, dry-sobbing form and tucking the blonde closer against her side.

"Her cat," Tina answered sadly. "Apparently, his reign on the earth is comparable to the second coming of Christ."

"Puck told us about your Broadway audition," Rory said to Schue. "Are you really gonna go?"

"No, no, no," Kurt said, holding up a hand. "He has no option. He _will_ be going. You _are_ going to audition. And when you get the part, you will send us all— _ALL_ —tickets to the best seats in the house. There is no room for argument. This is a closed discussion. You have your orders, Will Schuester. You have no other choice but to comply."

The gleeks laughed, but everyone in the room knew Hummel was dead-serious.

"Okay, okay, yes, I have been strong-armed into going to this audition. It's a summer production, so Emma and I will be on the road to New York as soon as the graduation ceremony is over tonight. But I don't want you all to get your—"

"Hopes up?" Blaine finished with a smirk. "Too late. Half of us—if not all—will be forced into a ritual the day of the audition by Kurt and Rachel."

"Oh, _God_ , yeah," Santana agreed, grimacing. "Probably be forced to combine all forms of religious prayer to make sure you get the part. Now I gotta get my _abuela_ 's rosaries. She's gonna think I'm trying to be a devout Catholic and will drag me to mass every chance she gets."

"Well, now that you've given us the idea, it doesn't sound like a bad thing to call upon higher powers to aid Mr. Schue," Berry pointed out.

Legit, _everyone_ in the room groaned.

" _Anyway_ ," Schue said as Pillsbury cooed at Beth, "since this is officially the last day we're ever going to be in here together as teacher and students—"

"Aw, are you gonna sing to us again, Mr. Schue?" Sam asked, clasping his hands together.

"‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ part deux," Artie sighed.

Schue laughed and reached for Pillsbury's hand. "Actually, Emma and I are gonna sing a song for you. It was her idea."

Bambi blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Well, consider it my going-away advice to you seniors. I've never sung for you before, so I guess it's only fitting that I would sing you advice."

Puck grimaced. "It's not gonna be about cleaning, is it?"

_WHACK!_

"Hummel! I am holding a baby! No hitting the guy holding a baby!"

"No, Puck, it's not going to be about cleaning, although ‘Whistle While You Work’ was definitely on my list of consideration. After all, it promotes a positive message when faced with problems or issues to work around."

When she was met with a collective blank stare—even from the baby—she glanced at Schue and nodded. The man grinned, pulled up two stools and signaled to the band. Berry poked Beth one more time before Quinn lifted her off Puck's lap to set the baby on her own.

As soon as the music started, Berry gasped and reached behind her to clasp hands with Hummel because apparently, they _really_ liked this song.

Pillsbury glanced at Schue nervously before singing, _"When somebody loves you, it's no good unless he loves you...all the way."_

Okay, if Bambi didn't look so innocent and cute up there, Puck would've busted out laughing because of the _that's-what-she-said_ he knew everyone was thinking about. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that Berry—in full view of _everyone_ , i.e. Finn—reached out with her free hand and linked her index and middle finger with his ring and pinkie fingers. He wasn't gonna deny that he really fucking loved the way something warm settled over his chest, and the taste of sugar cookies randomly appeared in his mouth. The sparks that skittered over his skin, on the other hand, was too mushy for his badassness to deal with. He turned to look at her as Schue sang along about deep blue seas. Then he smirked, shook his head, and weaved his fingers between hers the _right way_.

Then he turned back to Schue, who caught his eye and smiled before lifting his own clasped hands with Pillsbury and kissed her knuckles.

" _Who knows where the road will lead us? Only a fool would say. But if you let me love you, it's for sure I'm gonna love you all the way…all the way. I'm gonna love you all the way."_


	12. Brad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit of 92% of what Sue Sylvester says in this chapter goes to none other than the most epic writer of Sue Sylvester this fandom has ever seen, yomomma222 of FFnet. I could spend 4 days trying to come up with half of her snark and would only manage a feeble 2%. But on a more serious note, some of Sue's remarks really toe the line, so don't take offense, don't take me seriously, these are not my views, and SERIOUSLY, peoples. Do I really need to explicitly point out that this is Sue Sylvester, whose mere existence is offensive to three-fifths of the world's population? Don't take it seriously.

He swore to himself last night—legit, _swore_ —that he would only step back onto McKinley High property if it was either for a reunion or if he and Berry had plans to defile the football field. He even told Chang and Evans that if he ever crossed the threshold for any reason aside from those two, bad things would happen. As if there was some serious hoodoo on his head, like the spirit of the building cursed him for all the vandalism or something.

So obviously the cosmos decided to bitch-slap him ‘cause he forgot his capo in the choir room.

Of course.

So he had to break out the keys he lifted from the janitor first day of freshman year even though he stashed them in a shoebox at the bottom of his closet for nostalgia’s sake, drive his ass to school at the unholy hour of 12 PM, and trudge through the godforsaken halls he vowed to never walk through again not _seven hours ago_.

_It’s your own fault for leaving it in the first place, Noah._

_Ya, but its urs 4 mkn me ‘volunteer’ 4 this. Which mnt me needing guitar & capo._

_This is for a good cause, and you know the kids love it when we come over!_

_But rite aftr graduation?? We only slept 6hrs, bby._

_Well, it is entirely our faults for parading through town in Santana’s limo only to end up in the football field and then proceeding to dance around like fools at said football field when we already made prior arrangements._

_M doin this 4 the kids now, Berry. Ur mean._

_Well, you are an absolute child, Noah. Man up! You’ve survived on much less, and you know how I hate not having a good night’s sleep. I’m suffering more than you._

_Drama queen._

_If you would stop texting me to bemoan your current situation, you would’ve found your capo and picked me up by now._

_Ur mean, Berry. U bad, bad girl._

_Noah, stop it._

_So naughty._

_Noah, I demand you cease this nonsense._

_U need 2 b punished._

_I will show these texts to your mother, so help me God!_

_She’ll just praise the Lord, Berry. No use. U cn’t escape ur punishment._

_Noah Elijah Puckerman, STOP._

_U know u dsrve it. Cn’t u feel the guilt? U wnt 2 b punished. U wnt justice 2 b served._

His phone rang, and he laughed as he answered the call.

“You will _stop_ these shenanigans, Noah!” she shrieked. He could almost see the shade of red on her face. “And to be honest, they’re not your best either.”

Puck smirked. “You mean to tell me you actually keep track of my dirty jokes?”

“Well, I can’t help it!” she cried defensively. “I can’t exactly do anything else with them, and you just keep throwing them at me, so I just started taking into account your more creative and clever ones...”

“Oh, really? And which one’s your favorite then?”

“I’m not answering that.”

Puck grinned as he turned down the corner. He was about to say something else when he heard music coming from down the hall—from the...gym...?

_“…infect me with your lovin’, fill me with your poison. Take me, ta-ta-ta-take me, wanna be a victim, ready for abduction. Boy, you’re an alien. Your touch so foreign. It’s supernatural, extraterrestrial…”_

“Uh, Berry? Baby, I gotta...go...”

“Noah? Just hurry up, okay? The orphanage is expecting us in an hour and a half.”

“Yeah, babe,” Puck answered distractedly, trying to peer through the gym doors. “Be there in a couple of minutes. Bye.”

“Noah—”

She was gonna lecture his hot ass off for hanging up on her, but it had to be done. Why? ‘Cause when he cracked open the door to the gym and poked his head inside, he saw the one thing that he both didn’t _ever_ want to see but would _kill_ to catch on camera. And the opportunity just presented itself.

_“...kiss is cosmic, every move is magic. You're from a whole ‘nother world, a different dimension. You opened my eyes, and I’m ready to go...”_

The bitch could _move_ , he’d give her that. But those were moves that he never really wanted to see. There was something just sick and wrong and _epic_ about the whole thing. So because he was the Puckzilla, badass bastard extraordinaire, he ducked into the gym doors like a ninja, crouched behind the section of folded-up bleachers, and broke out the camcorder on his phone ‘cause this shit belonged on YouTube.

Sue Sylvester doing the Sam Evans body rolls and the Brittany Pierce hip swings in the middle of the gym floor? Yeah, this would easily go up to a million hits.

She was right in the  middle of the second chorus when she actually ran one hand up her thigh and ass while the other went down her chest and ‘round her boob, and Puck could no longer hold back the gagging noise. Sylvester immediately froze, and those beady eyes zeroed in on the camera, the hand it was attached it to, and the face that was right behind it. Only two words sprang to mind as he could’ve sworn that the woman’s eyes went totally and completely pitch-black. “Oh, fuck.”

“PUCKERMAN! I WILL RIP OUT YOUR MARIJUANA-LACED VEINS AND REPLACE THEM WITH SPLINTERED TOOTHPICKS SOAKED IN GORILLA URINE IF YOU DO NOT GIVE ME THAT PHONE RIGHT NOW!”

One second he was staring at a face so fucking red it matched the shade of that godforsaken tracksuit, and the next he was out in the hall sprinting for his life.

He didn’t know how he pulled it off, but he actually managed to avoid this woman the _entire_ school year. If they were ever in the same room, there was a solid ten feet and a couple bodies separating them. It was kind of a mutual avoidance in that they would make each other’s lives a living hell if lines were crossed. It was unspoken, unacknowledged, and undeniable. Puck was fucking annoying, and not all of Sylvester’s threats were inconceivable.

The shit that would go _down_ between them would immediately shoot back _up_ into the fan.

Exhibit A:

Puck roared with laughter as he skidded around the corner, glancing back at the raging psychopath who was currently right on his ass, waving around a Louisville Slugger like he was a fucking flesh-eating zombie.

“GET BACK HERE, YOU SQUIRREL-TAIL-HEADED LEECH, SO I CAN SMASH YOUR NOSE INTO YOUR SPLEEN!”

Having mastered the art of hauling ass and multitasking, Puck unlocked his phone and hit “Send to YouTube.”

“Title?” he said out loud between breaths. “Alien Coach Porn!”

“I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, DREIDL BOY, AND I WILL LIGHT UP YOUR ASS LIKE A MENORAH ON THE EIGHTH DAY OF HANUKKAH!”

He hardly even acknowledged the racism, and instead broke out the big vocabulary guns he suppressed after writing his kickass application essays. “Summary? National title-winning coach, Sue Sylvester of Ohio’s McKinley High Cheerios, indulges in self-pleasure—”

“I WILL REARRANGE YOUR BONE STRUCTURE WITHOUT EVER BREAKING SKIN, AND THEN I WILL BAKE YOU!  BAKE YOU UNTIL YOU RESEMBLE A GINGERBREAD CREATURE WITH HIS HEAD IN HIS ARMPIT!”

“—set to the nerve-tingling rhythms of Katy Perry’s hit song, ‘E. T.’ After the recent departure of her bitter rival, New Directions Choir Director William Schuester, Coach Sylvester has come to terms with the unrequited love for her coworker that she has since masked with violent, offensive, and frequently racist and derogatory threats, comments, and complaints. This—”

“YOU WILL DANGLE FROM A HELICOPTER HOVERING ABOVE THE JUNGLES OF THE PHILIPPINES OCCUPIED BY YOUNG BURT REYNOLDS’S RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY CANNIBAL ANCESTORS!”

“—one’s for you, Mr. Schue!” he cackled, bursting into the lab room, vaulting over desks and chairs, and then hurtling out through the other door. “HD? God, yes! Tags: _sick_ , _wrong_ , _KatyPerry_ , _traumatizing_ , and _funny_! Make it a public video? Hell, yes! Publish? Oh, ye—”

His finger was, legit, a _millimeter_ from the touch screen when a _chair_ smashed against the floor inches from his right foot.

Then it hit him.

No, you little shits, not the baseball bat—the realization that this woman was demon-possessed and therefore had the superhuman strength that meant she probably _could_ rip his innards apart.

“PUBLISH THAT VIDEO, YOU DEGENERATE CHIMPANZEE, AND I WILL RAIN DOWN ALL THE COLLECTIVE FURY OF HELL AND MY BOWELS TO ENSURE THAT YOU WILL SUFFER FOR THE NEXT SEVENTY-TWO MILLENNIA YOUR RELIGION PROMISES YOU!”

Puck was pretty sure her rage had totally fucked up her facts about religions, but he had to focus on other things. Like the way he narrowly dodged the beaker that shattered against the wall inches from his head. He barreled into the choir room, darting  behind the piano. Sue skidded to a stop on the opposite side, and he finally got a full view of the  sight that would give him fucking nightmares for the rest of his life.

She wasn’t even bleeding or disheveled. Sue Sylvester was just a horrifying terror in and of herself that a person’s subconscious involuntary response to the sight of her would be to induce nightmares.

“You don’t show up for an actual class, but you’re here while all of your other delinquent friends are kicking off their summers with smoking the reefer and having showtune-themed orgies. Good God, Puckerman! No wonder your career aspirations don’t stretch farther than the line for barely life-like crash test dummies.”

Then she took full advantage of the fact that she’d finally cornered him to give him one hell of a long-winded diatribe.

“If you post that video, I will ensure that your life is full of disappointment, rejection, and sex with nothing but fat, wrinkly, ugly women who only sleep with you because they pity you. Disbelieve all you want, but all you have going for you is your face, that ridiculous Mohawk, and your charm. Take those away and you’re nothing, and this is how I plan on doing as such. First, I will scalp you. That’s right, Tonto. Down to the skull to ensure there will be no future re-growth. Then, when you have shed enough tears to fill a mason jar over the loss of a hairstyle that peaked in popularity while we still lived in colonies, I will drink those tears and proceed to scrape your face off with a dull, rusty butter knife and then spread it on my morning toast. I will be the last woman to enjoy your face, and it will be with an egg over medium and a glass of orange juice. Finally, just when you think you can still pull off a Beauty and the Beast with a nice girl who doesn't care what you look like because you're beautiful on the inside, I'll cut out your tongue so the only thing left in your repertoire is mumbles, uncontrollable drooling, and your rock hard abs. Yeah, I've noticed. Those I respect and will allow you to keep. You will walk this Earth as a deformed creature that will cause small children and even grown men to shoot up out of bed, shrieking and sobbing in terror multiple times throughout the night for the rest of their lives. At a ripe old age, just before you take your last, miserable, dying breath in an empty room because no one will ever love you, I will enter said room and whisper in your ear, ‘You shouldn't have posted that video.’”

Puck just gawked at her. And y’all wonder why he thought it was a major accomplishment to have avoided this woman for an entire year.

“Jesus Christ! Can’t you just threaten to shoot my balls off or something?”

“I didn’t want to spare you from the emotional and physical trauma of having them shrivel up into raisins during that horrifying transition from degenerate human being to inorganic abomination. It’s the best part in my opinion.”

He grabbed the stack of loose sheet music on top of the piano and chucked the whole bunch at her, making her disappear in a flurry of white paper. She shrieked in fury, and Puck seized the opportunity to grab at a music stand— _anything_ to try and counter the blow of a fucking _bat_ coming at his head.

It sounds so fucking cliché, but in retrospect, the phrase is actually true: everything seemed to slow down as soon as Puck’s hand wrapped around the stand.

Instead of stepping toward the stand like a normal person, Puck had stayed as close to the piano as possible and had _lunged_ for the stand because he honestly thought that close proximity to the piano meant there was a solid 600lbs of mass keeping them apart. And instead of waiting for the papers to drop or at least slap them out of the way, Sue decided to raise the bat over her head and smash it downward, cutting through the flurry.

That meant she smashed the bat right into the piano. That meant the force of the blow cracked one of the already-cracked legs of the piano. That meant one end of the piano came crashing to the floor. That meant Puck’s foot was in the right position to be the landing spot of the aforementioned descending end of the piano.

In all the years of McKinley High, no sound like such had ever been heard: a bloodcurdling scream mixed in with the disjointed, musical crash of a broken piano.

“Get it off! Get it off! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!” Puck roared, and for the first time, Sue obeyed without her signature snark.

She dropped the bat and rushed over to try and haul the section of the piano off while Puck just collapsed onto the ground to use his other foot to push.

“FUCKITY FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK! GET IT OFF! HOLY SHIT! GET IT OFF!” he screeched.

As soon as Sue managed to heave the bulk of the piano off his foot, Puck clambered up onto his one good leg and tried to hobble over to the chairs, hunched over as he feebly gripped the knee off his injured foot. Unfortunately, his bent stature meant that his head was right in line with the door when it flew open.

A solid crack echoed through the empty school followed by two simultaneous yells:

“WHAT HAPPENED?!”

“TINKLES, YOU USELESS BUSH OF A MAN! IF THIS GROTESQUE BABOON’S MOTHER CHARGES ME FOR ASSAULT, I’M FILING YOU AS MY BUMBLING FOOL OF AN ACCOMPLICE!”

**~oOo~**

“...and I know you’d hate me, but I could never be able to succeed in New York unless I knew that you were all right. You’d say that I was giving up my dreams for you much like I was giving them up for Finn, but the truth is that there is a difference between you and Finn. An obvious one, of course, but the one that stands out to me the most is that while I would’ve given up everything for Finn, he would’ve let me. Whereas you would’ve screamed at me and called me stupid while simultaneously making me feel like a princess. Finn is just...just words, and you...you say it and then give me physical proof of it—like w-with the Barbravention. You told me you hated it when Jewish girls get nose jobs on their sixteenth birthdays, and Finn told me I was the beautiful the way I was. While I thought that at the time, I preferred Finn’s wording, now I quite like yours much better. He’s all talk; you _show_ me you mean it. And for someone who likes talking, I understand the value of action. It makes or breaks an actor’s career. One cannot just say the lines with the mouth, the body must also project the message as well. So, Noah, you _have_ to get better because you really are lacking in the speech category, but your actions make the difference.”

Puck had been awake for the last fifteen minutes—woke up right about when Berry started rambling—but he was honestly in too much pain and too tired to really try and make an effort to open his eyes.

But he couldn’t stop himself anymore.

“You just want my hot body,” he rasped, cracking open an eye and smirking at her. “You like how I use my mouth and not what comes out of it.”

She’d been crying, that much was pretty obvious. But apparently thinking she was at his deathbed didn’t stop her from smacking him on the stomach.

“Ow! Berry, come on. Lighten up,” he gasped, grabbing both her little hands in one of his.

“You were unconscious for _six_ _hours_ , Noah,” she choked out. “You _scared_ me. Apparently there’s been serious damage to your foot—”

“But it’s still attached, right?!” he demanded, eyes wide.

The heart monitor next to him started beeping erratically, and she pushed him back down onto the bed.

“Yes, if you want to make sure, take a look down the bed. Your foot is right there. But dropping about six hundred pounds on it is a fairly bad idea, so you’re going to be off it for a while. You’re lucky you were wearing those thick leather boots of yours and that you and that demon-possessed creature managed to pull off the piano almost immediately,” Berry explained, clenching her teeth together.

Puck scowled. “Where is that psychopath anyway? I wanna put out a restraining order.”

“She’s outside, getting an earful from Mr. Schue.”

“I thought Schue was on his way to New York.”

Berry sat down on the hospital bed and he set his hand on her hip to keep her there, making sure to run his hand over her bare thigh and hike up her skirt before he got there. What? Just ‘cause he was in the hospital doesn’t mean he wasn’t Puck anymore. “He’d just crossed the border when we called him. He and that-that—”

“Bitch, Berry. Say it. Bitch.”

“—that _thing_ are now having a shouting match in an empty room on Finn’s cell phone.”

“Everyone’s here?” Puck asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

“Well, of course,” she scoffed. “We’re your friends, Noah. You should have seen Brittany when she got here. She was inconsolable for a solid two hours, and when Sam bought her a packet of candy, she was reduced to hysterics.”

Puck grimaced. “What candy was it?”

“Sour Patch Kids. Why is that relevant?”

Puck flinched. “Don’t worry about it, honey.”

“Noah, don’t brush this off, okay? You have a concussion. You were swimming in and out of consciousness earlier, mumbling about Jewish gingerbread men, raisins, and cannibals,” she said seriously, her bottom lip trembling.

Puck sighed and pulled her closer to his side. “I’m fine now, Berry. Promise. Head hurts like shit and my foot aches like a mother but at least I’m not in a coma or something, right?”

Apparently, something was wrong with whatever he said ‘cause she burst into tears again.

“Oh, Christ, Rach, come on. Come on, honey, stop it. You know I don’t like weepy. Stop. It’s okay. I’m okay. We’re okay. Stop it, woman. You’re okay. Ber—Rachel, sweetie, come on.” He pushed her hair back from her face and used his thumbs as windshield wipers on her cheeks. “Stop crying, baby. Please? For God’s sake, you know how I hate tears— _especially_ Berry tears. They’re the fucking worst.”

“I-I have my own brand of tears?”

Out of everything else he said, that would be what she would focus on.

“Yeah,” he said, smirking and bringing her face close to his so he could kiss her cheeks and her nose. “They’re special ‘cause they taste like strawberries.”

“Strawberries are not salty, Noah,” she corrected him, sniffling.  
   
He ignored her. “You know what tastes better than Berry tears, though? Berry Lips.”

“Let me guess,” she sighed wearily but with a small smile, bracing both her hands on either side of his shoulders, “they taste like raspberries?”

He shook his head and tangled his fingers in her hair, dragging her closer. “No. They taste like sugar cookies.”

He felt her smile against his lips as he got reacquainted with Berry’s mad kissing skills. Like seriously...the girl went from beginner to master that first time they made out on her bed, and she only got better even if she’d been only making out with Doughboy’s deformed big brother. She was legit the best kisser ever purely ‘cause of the enthusiasm, and he was seriously enjoying himself.

Sadly, _everyone_ could know exactly how much he was enjoying it ‘cause the heart monitor was beeping so fast, it sounded like it was gonna explode. The door suddenly burst open, and Berry practically leaped off the bed ‘cause of _course_ the nurse on duty would be—

“Oh, praise the Lord!”

“Ma!”

“Oh, please, _continue_ —no! Wait, let me hug you, honey! Oh, Rachel, have I said how happy I am that you’re here? Because I am! I’m over the moon!”

“Oh, yeah! Forget about your concussed son!”

“Noah, you’re fine,” she said dismissively before turning back to Berry and squeezing her cheeks together. “Rachel here will take care of you.”

“But _you’re_ the nurse!”

Aviva let go of her (hopefully) future daughter-in-law to drop a kiss on Puck’s forehead. “Please, Noah? Don’t antagonize that psychotic woman, okay?”

He scowled a little but nodded anyway. She patted his cheek affectionately and opened her mouth to say something else when a new voice boomed somewhere out in the hall.

“I’m on to your little Gay and Lesbian Early Enlistment club, Schuester!”

A beat skipped before Puck heard Schue’s tinny voice on speakerphone. “Glee is not an _acronym_ , Sue!”

“Say what you will, but you’re four-for-four in un-closeting the homosexual population of this school. Once word of that gets out, your little club will finally see its end.”

“I’m not even working there anymore! God, Sue, could you please get a grip?!”

“The only grip I need, William, is—”

“Coach! Can you just stop? Puck is awake now!” Quinn barked.

“Give me the phone before you smash it against the wall,” Santana said. “God knows you’ve broken enough shit for today. Now can you just walk in there and apologize for nearly killing the guy?”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t heard a single thing you’ve said since the simple act of watching your mouth form around words invokes in me the overwhelming urge to think of how many ways I can kill myself to put an end to it. All would be preferable to any conversation your watermelons might try to suck me into.”

Not two seconds later, Santana stomped in with Brittany, Sam, and Blaine right behind her.

“Couldn’t you have just grabbed that bat and whacked her in the face with it?!” Santana demanded, glaring at Puck.

“Why do you have to be so _mean_?” suddenly boomed from outside.

“Oh, Rory, no,” Brittany muttered, horrified.

“I swear to God, he needs to stop hanging with Finnocence. Dumbassness is infectious,” Santana sighed.

“Oh, look! Fresh meat. Got tired of eating potatoes and decided to finally get a taste of the sweet freedom that I fought for in jungles, deserts, and Taylor Swift concerts to secure for actual citizens of these United States? Let me see your papers, greenie.”

“Oh, good God, Finn, he’s turning red!” Kurt cried. “Do something!”

“What's the matter, Shamrock O'Houligan? Lost your pot of gold? I could give you a list of places to go look for it, but all suggestions I make would unquestionably lead to my immediate termination.”

“JESUS  CHRIST, SYLVESTER, WOULD YOU JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP?!” Puck finally roared impatiently, making Berry and his ma glare at him reproachfully.

The bitch herself poked her head into the room and smiled—but it was a creepy, _oh-look-there-are-zombies-for-me-to-channel-my-misplaced-aggression-on_ kind of smile. “Look who decided not to go into the light! Tell me, did your life flashing before your eyes show your past self to be a loudly-trilling tomahawk-thrower or a bearded, top-hat-wearing  violinist with a penchant for dancing on rooftops?”

“We could totally press charges, you know,” Bekah said acidly, brushing past Sue and coming to stand on the other side of Puck’s bed.

“Assault is a pretty serious issue especially after your little rampage down the school that one time,” Sam pointed out.

Sue rolled her eyes and walked in, arms crossed over her chest. “I could also decide not to continue my _completely_ legal nuclear-arming operation in my underground bunker because it’s detrimental to the disarming peace process, but my conscience won’t let me stop preparations for saving the world. You can’t have me arrested unless you want the Apocalypse to come _a-knockin’_ in the morrow, and where would you and your cattle be then?”

_What the fuck?_

“Make up your mind—am I an American Indian, a Jew, a cowboy, or a monkey? ‘Cause I don’t know what the hell kind of racist message you’re trying to send me now,” Puck grumbled. Then he held up a hand, “You know what? Forget it. I don’t care. Why are you even _here_?”

She sneered down at him, and his ma actually _growled_ from where she stood next to Berry. “It’s certainly not because I care about the well-being of you zoo animals. I’ve had venereal diseases—and, yes, the pluralizing was intentional—that were less irritating, repulsive, and pus-filled than your hideous pre-pubescent face. I’m here to make sure that my hard-earned insurance payments are being used for proper medical care and not drug-enabling procedures.”

“Wait—what?” Puck hissed.

Sue shrugged innocently. “I would’ve offered to let my _tax_ dollars pay your medical bills but, thankfully, Ohio rejected Obama Care. So this is all voluntary. Your minions have coerced me into paying your medical bills as reparations. For what, though—I have no idea.”

“You  chased him around school with a Louisville Slugger and smashed my piano onto his foot!” Brad cried incredulously from the doorway.

“That piano was probably made in China where their hands are too small to build anything worth a damn. If you didn’t want it to break, then you should’ve bought American, John Tesh,” she scoffed before turning back to Puck. “And you! You were clear across the room when that thing fell. How is it my fault that your freakishly enormous feet still managed to be under it? You don’t need a doctor, you need a red nose and a flower that squirts water, Jangles the Clown.”

“I don’t understand why you have to mask your guilt with offensive insults, Coach. Why can’t you just apologize and be done with it?” Berry asked tiredly.

Even Blaine scoffed at that.

“Guilt? I don’t know of this guilt of which you speak. Need I remind you that all weak human traits have been surgically removed from my system? This? This was me picking my battles, and I deemed a battle against you Ritalin-laced orangutans as not worth the effort. But if _any_ of you tell _anyone_ of this, I will cut out your uvula and replace it with bull testicles. Think you can still sing with large, dangling testicles in your mouth? I've tried it before. Doesn't work.”

“Okay, enough!” Aviva finally announced, nudging Bekah and Sam out and shooing away everyone else who’d poked their heads into the door. “You all need to get out of here right now. Noah needs rest, and mental images of you with testicles in your mouth has scarred _all of us_ , I’m sure. Everyone out!”

“Don’t go to sleep, Puck!” Finn called out from the hallway.

“Dude, he’s in the hospital,” Puck heard Mike say reassuringly. “He’ll be fine.”

“You sure you can’t be a dancer _and_ a doctor, Mike?” Brittany asked. “You sound like my pediatrician. Actually...you kinda look like him too.”

“Is that considered a racist comment?” Rory asked.

“Not when it’s Brit-Brit,” Santana answered.

When Berry turned to leave, though, Aviva pushed her back toward Puck’s bed, making Blaine and Sam laugh. Once everyone was finally out, Berry perched herself on the bed again and smiled.

“That was some funny-ass shit,” Puck admitted, smirking.

Berry grimaced. “Noah, I’ve never heard so many offensive things jam-packed into one conversation.”

“Really? Because that’s why I avoid that choir room like Dachau—every sound coming out of it is offensive and a severe bowel-trigger,” Sue said, marching right back into the room.

“Oh, Christ, I thought Ma told you to _leave_!” Puck signed exasperatedly. “Seriously, I really don’t want to be breathing the same air as you right now, psycho.”

“Stifle your prejudices against my bodily functions, Puckerman. I’m just back here to tell you that this is as close as I’m gonna get to apologizing.”

“Okay, lady, at this point, I really couldn’t give a shit about an apology. I just want you far, far away from me.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. Leave that to yenta right here.”

“You threw a chair, a beaker, and a bat at me! All ‘cause of a harmless prank!”

“It’s not that I care you recorded it, there’s plenty of footage of my sexual escapades already on the internet. There is an entire website dedicated exclusively to paying homage to yours truly in the buff. If you have a credit card and an open mind, you should check it out,” she said and then held out her hand for his iPhone. Despite him being thoroughly disgusted, he reached over to grab it from the bedside table and handed it over. Shit’d already been uploaded. “See, the lighting is terrible, you’ve got the angle all wrong, and you didn’t get my skinny side. If Brad would be willing and, let’s be honest, why wouldn’t he? I would be more than happy to perform a re-shoot.”

And as Berry and Puck just stared at her in equal parts disgust and fear, Brad himself poked his head into the room.

“Sue, come on,” he called, his tone soaked in frustration and impatience. “Figgins is at the school with the new piano.”

“New piano?” Berry echoed.

Brad turned to her and shrugged. “I was at the school to arrange for repairs since there had already been a hairline fracture in the leg of the old piano. That’s why it came down so easily. I had to leave for a couple of minutes though.”

“Why?” Puck asked, wishing that Brad had been there to stop it all from escalating as badly as it did.

“The thing weighs almost seven-hundred pounds. I couldn’t move it to the school entrance by myself,” Brad explained.

Sue had to put in her two cents, of course. “If we all let minor setbacks like that hold us up, we’d have British accents, there wouldn’t be nudity on prime time television, and I wouldn’t have lost my virginity to David Copperfield.”

Brad just ignored her. “So I’d just called up Coach Beiste when I came back. She’s still at the school now, cleaning up the remnants of the last piano. I guess the only good thing that came out of this is that instead of repairs we get a brand new baby grand.”

All eyes swiveled to Sue.

“Well, I _had_ to be the one to buy it,” she growled. “You incompetent gorillas wouldn’t have bought American like I told you to!”

“Just hurry up!” Brad barked.

She was already out the door, rambling things like, “You know what a mustache really is? It’s when your hairline gets so embarrassed by your face that it finally sends a group of troops down to cover a portion of it up. I’d say it’s just a matter of time before a beard and a uni-brow show up to assist with the effort.”

Brad glanced over his shoulder before jogging inside with a huge smile and holding out a fist for Puck to bump. “You really did it, huh? You got Sue to buy me a new piano.”

Puck shrugged. “I was actually just gonna blackmail her, but no pain, no gain, I guess.”

“Feel better, kid. Sorry about smacking you in the head.”

“I’ve had worse. Don’t worry about it.”

“Still, though. I owe you one.”

“Nah, think of it as a goodbye present from all us gleeks.”

Brad waved goodbye and jogged back out of the room. Berry’s head snapped toward Puck, and she crossed her arms over her chest, _clearly_ about to demand an explanation.

“Baby—”

“If you tell me this was all staged, Noah Puckerman—”

“Chill out, Berry, it _wasn’t_! I was the one to make that hairline fracture on the piano for accidentally tripping over the leg. Tinkles nearly cried on the spot, so I promised him that I’d find a way to get him a new one—even if I had to get Sue Sylvester herself to do it. I was actually just pooling money together or blackmailing Sue with the video I uploaded, but I guess it all worked out well enough.”

“Well enough?! You had to pay the cost of a-a broken foot, a concussion, and the _severe mental and emotional trauma_ of having to deal with that woman!”

Puck just shrugged. “I’ll be outta this is a month or two—”

“Or _three_!”

“—and it’ll all be good, Berry. Chills. I’m okay.” He pulled her closer against his side again and played with the hem of her little skirt. “Promise.”

“You won’t be able to go into the lake at Santana’s party next week,” she muttered, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You’ll be relegated to dry ground, and you were the one who insisted—in grammatically incorrect terminology, might I add—that being in the water was what made summer _summer_.”

“ _Girls_ in water is what makes summer _summer_ , Berry. Get it right.”

**~oOo~**

“GET YOUR CUTE ASS IN THIS WATER, MAN-HANDS, BEFORE I TACKLE YOU IN, RIP OFF YOUR TOP, AND FORCE YOU TO STAY IN UNTIL YOU’RE PRUNY AS FUCK!”

Puck roared with laughter as Berry turned bright red, hands on her hips as she glared down at Santana. The bitch was treading water and running her hands through her hair, simultaneously seducing Brittany, Finn, Rory, and even Artie.

“You wouldn’t dare!” Berry snapped back.

Santana smirked, and Puck, even though he wanted to see Berry topless, didn’t want everyone else to see it too, so he poked her left cheek with the headstock of his guitar. He’d been checking out every inch of her as soon as she got into his truck, and he nearly lost it when she stripped out of her shirt and shorts to reveal miles of tanned, golden skin. If he laid a finger on her, the Lopezes were gonna have a full-on soft porn show right in their backyard.

“Just get in the water, baby. Santana’s like a fucking mermaid. She’ll drag you all the way down to the bottom, rape you, and then let you go.”

“Fuckerman!”

“Santana! Act and speak like a lady!”

“Well, then act like a teenager and get your ass in the lake, B!”

“Ra-chel! Ra-chel! Ra-chel!” the gleeks started chanting.

“No, no, no, shut up!” Puck suddenly called out. “You’re doing it wrong.”

He reached up from where he sat on the edge of the dock and rubbed his thumb across Berry’s soft knuckles. Her big brown eyes were wide when she looked back down at him.

“Rach, honey, please get in the water.”

He swore to God he saw gold stars in this girl’s eyes when she grinned down at him. Well, in her eyes and on the tiny, black, gold-star-studded bikini he got her three days ago. Then she patted his head and walked back up the dock.

“Hey! RACHEL! The fuck do you think you’re going?!” Santana shrieked furiously.

Berry flipped her hair over her shoulder, walked off the dock, skirted around the edge of the lake, and headed toward the huge tree overhanging the water. Puck threw his head back and laughed when he realized what she was about to do.

“Noah, educate our friends!” she commanded as she stepped right up to the tree.

“Rachel Berry is nothing if not dedicated,” he recited. “If she does something, it sure as hell isn’t going to be half-assed.”

“Noah! What did we say about ad-libbing?!” Berry demanded, pausing in between reaching for branches.

“Come on, baby! I had to put my own spin on it! At least my grammar was correct! And I thought you liked originality!”

She pursed her lips to keep from smiling as she continued making her way up to the thickest branch.

“Please, for the love of God, be careful,” Puck called.

“Look! The badass cares!” Kurt called from where he was supporting Brittany on his shoulders she play-fought with Tina, who was on Mike’s shoulders.

“‘Course I care, jackass!” Puck almost screeched. “She has two fathers plus my mom who’d crucify me if I let anything happen to her.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Berry sighed as she walked out to the edge of the bough. “I have the agility of a cat.”

“Didn’t stop you from doing a face-plant on the floor that one time in glee,” Puck reminded her, chuckling

“You buttered the floor, you uncouth delinquent!” she shrieked.

“Baby, save the dirty talk for the bedroom!”

She actually bent down, broke off a branch, and tried to throw it at him.

“FAIL, BERRY!” Puck bellowed, grinning. “Would you just jump now?!”

She glared at him one last time before, spreading her arms out to her sides and executing some Olympic-style dive that had Puck desperate to jump into the lake to cool off even with the cast, ‘cause that shit?

 _Hot_.

“WOO! YEAH, RACH!” Sam cheered from where he and Finn were racing.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you knew how to dive?!” Finn cried in disbelief.

“You never asked!” Berry called back as Santana threw her arms around her shoulders.

Santana planted a kiss on Berry’s cheek and rested her head on her shoulder. “Tow me to shore? I wants me some _musica_.”

Berry smiled and started swimming toward the dock ladder. Once Santana was out, she whistled to her brothers who were lounging on the patio.

“Hey! _Hermanos perezosos, ven aquí!_ ” she called out, waving them over to the sound system her dad had hooked up, completely bypassing the caution about electrical wiring and water and putting the shit together as close to the lake as the extension cord would let him.

Apparently, he did it as soon as she told him the gleeks were coming over. He pretty much assumed that since it was a club about singing, that’s pretty much what they would be doing. And...he was right.

“Hey! Puckerman!” Santana’s older brother fist-bumped him as ten year-old Angel smiled shyly at Quinn.

“Guillermo! Nice to be blinded by that bald head of yours again,” Puck greeted. “What’s goin’ on?”

Guillermo laughed ‘cause that actually wasn’t his name. Puck just called him whatever random-ass Hispanic-sounding name that popped into his head ‘cause he could never actually remember the guy’s name since he hardly ever visited.

“Life’s been good, kid. The hell happened to you?” Guillermo asked, jerking his chin toward Puck’s cast as he started hooking up Puck’s electric to the amp.

“Dropped a piano on it,” Puck answered simply.

Guillermo gave him a look over his aviators and chuckled. “The shit you get caught up in... Swear to God, Puckerman.”

“Shut it, Raphael.”

Raphael laughed again as Santana shoved the guitar a Puck and took the acoustic away. “Come on, useless lump. You and Wheels are gonna be our entertainment.”

“Bitch, entertain yourself!” Puck shot back even though he was already positioning the guitar and waving over Sam and Finn.

“Oh! Oh! Request! I have a request!” Brittany shouted as Sam and Finn dried off.

“You take requests?” Raphael asked skeptically.

“No,” Puck answered firmly.

“The song that was playing when you took me and Lord Tubbington to the vet! The one by Keith Urban!”

“Brit, I don’t play country songs!” Puck protested.

“You did ‘Need You Now’ with Rae!”

“That was an exception!”

“SING IT!”

Puck scowled as he played, letting Sam take the lead since the guy was from fucking Tennessee anyway. But he definitely took up the “ _We should be together with your feet up on the dashboard now, singin’ along with the radio, it’s such a beautiful sound, and when you say my name in the middle of the day, I swear, I see the stars  come out_ ” line, winking directly at Berry. If Pierce was gonna force him to sing another country song, there would only be one person he’d sing to.

As soon as it was over though, Puck signaled to Artie, and he and Sam switched over to the keyboards.

“Oh, yeah!” Raphael crowed, clapping his hands. “This party’s finally pickin’ up!”

Puck beat out a chord on the keyboard as Artie laughed. Santana clapped, and she and the rest of the girls went straight for it.

_“Don’t care what they say or what games they play, nothing is enough ‘til I have your love. I want you tonight, I want you to stay. I want you tonight—”_

_“Grab somebody sexy tell ‘em ‘hey!’”_ Blaine picked up, heaving himself out of the water, Finn and Sam harmonizing with him. _“Give me everything tonight. Give me everything tonight.”_

“Alejandro!” Puck called, signaling for Santana’s brother.

Alejandro/Raphael/Guillermo was more than happy to start rapping along with Artie.

It was lame and fun and stupid and hysterical and Puck was barely paying attention to the music ‘cause Berry took her job seriously as a personal aid and was literally dancing up against him while simultaneously making sure his good leg wasn’t gonna give out and make him crash into the instruments. Angel was practically break-dancing right there on the dock, nearly falling into the water four times. Kurt almost drowned ‘cause Brittany wouldn’t stop bouncing on his shoulders. Finn managed to poke himself in the eye with his drumstick when Santana’s mom burst out of the house and starting singing “ _She_ _Bangs_ ” with her daughter. Rory’s eyes nearly popped out when all the girls lined up and started doing coordinated body rolls to Usher. Artie totally forgot about his bitterness over not being able to get in the water when the girls constantly used him and his chair as a prop. Finn poked his other eye when that happened. Mercedes got a sexy samba dance lesson from Alejandro/Raphael/Guillermo when Santana’s mom requested yet _another_ Ricky Martin song. Kurt requested Enrique Iglesias, but Puck drew the line there until Santana’s mom kissed his cheek, said “please,” and promised to let them party at the house whenever they wanted (which the gleeks totally took advantage of throughout the summer). Berry totally made it worth his while with an impromptu make-session in Santana’s kitchen under the guise of needing to pee. She made it even better when he tried to stop her and she nibbled on his ear and whispered, “Forget about Finn. He can get the hell over it. I want you.”

All in all? Fucking great summer. Even if his foot was broken.

And when Schue’s parents sent them all tickets to see an actual Broadway show—complete with first-class plane tickets ‘cause they were over the fucking moon that their son was ON BROADWAY—Puck surprised Schue with the whole _you-weren’t-actually-fired-so-you-need-to-come-back-to-New-Directions_ bomb which led to a midnight crank-call to Sue Sylvester whose screams of agony could actually be heard all the way in New York. The rave reviews and Tony nomination was just the cherry on top.


	13. Berry

No one was actually leaving for the rest of their lives yet. Brittany, Mike, Tina, and Mercedes were flying off to Cali next week, Artie was jetting off to Columbia on the same day, Quinn would be heading to Yale the day after, Kurt would follow Artie up to New York the day after that, and Finn would be disappearing into Europe as soon as all the gleeks were dispersed. But since Sam and Santana were going off to visit family before heading straight to their respective colleges, it was decided that the going-away party would have to be early. It hardly even counted as a party, though. The Rachel Berry House Party? _That_ was a party. This one? This one was just the gleeks (plus Bekah since they were at Puck’s house) sitting around and reminiscing about the most random-ass shit like how Kurt would always look out the window of the choir room like a peeping tom, how they never got the brilliant idea to recruit the band members as dancing props when the member count was low, and the assessment of how theirs had to be the most incestuous group in the whole fucking country.

“Let’s see,” Kurt said, holding up a finger. “Mike is now engaged to Tina who used to date Artie who dated Brittany who dated _me_ at one point—yes, Blaine, I was straight once—before moving on to Santana who dumped Puck because of his bad credit score and then moved on to take Finn’s virginity even though he was supposed to lose his special gift with Rachel who’s always had this connection with Puckerman who once dated Mercedes before she developed a thing for Sam ‘White Chocolate’ Evans who dated Quinn who lost her own virginity and got knocked up by Puck who has surprisingly never had any sort of liaison with one Tina Cohen-Chang.”

“Dear _God_ ,” Rory breathed in shock, taking a huge gulp of his soda. “How are you all still on speaking terms?”

“That is a very good question,” was Kurt’s evasive response.

“Don’t even forget the relationships some of us had outside of glee,” Mercedes laughed.

“Jesse,” Finn and Puck chorused bitterly, making Berry blush and sink lower into the couch cushions between Santana and Quinn.

“San and her beard,” Quinn giggled, poking Santana in the temple over Berry’s head.

“Oh, God, I told you he kissed me before, right?” Kurt suddenly blurted out.

“You’re kidding!” Sam cried in shock.

“Why didn’t you tell us that before, dude?!” Finn demanded angrily, his big-brother instincts kicking in.

“I promised him I’d keep his sexuality a secret, but I doubt he’ll care at this point,” Kurt answered nonchalantly before turning to Blaine, who was leaning against his knees on the floor. “We saw him heading into a gay bar, remember?”

Blaine nodded through a mouthful of Oreos. “S’true. Plus Puck called him out on it when we got in that fight at Seven-Eleven.”

“Seriously?” Tina asked.

Puck nodded. “He checks out Sam’s ass all the time.”

“DUDE!” Sam cried, punching Puck in the shoulder. “Not cool!”

“It’s okay, Trouty Mouth,” Santana said. “If it makes you feel better, it’s solid, accepted fact that you have a nice ass now.”

“Moving on,” Sam grumbled.

Puck nudged the ex-Warbler with the toe of his shoe and grinned evilly. “You and Berry.”

“That didn’t count!” Kurt screeched.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Artie suddenly called everyone to attention. “It just occurred to me: If Puck’s pretty much slept with the entire cougar population of Lima, does this mean we all have too?”

As if on the same wavelength, everyone but Puck and innocent little Rory looked thoroughly horrified.

“Wait, no, that only applies to those who have slept with Noah after or during his cougar phase,” Berry pointed out triumphantly with a finger in the air.

“Baby, I’ve been cleaning pools since freshman year,” Puck reminded her. “I infected y’all from the very beginning.”

“Okay, but some of us never actually slept with each other even though we dated—like Tina, Mercedes, and me,” Kurt sighed in relief.

“But you guy made out with us,” Santana said. “So you technically _made out_ with the entire cougar population of Lima.”

“Oh, _ew_ ,” Finn gagged.

“Oh, hey, don’t forget about Brittany’s checklist,” Santana said, dropping one of her sweet lady-kisses on her girlfriend’s lips.

“Oh, _shit_!” Finn blurted out. “We all made out and-or had sex with pretty much every student in McKinley then!”

Blaine just laughed. “I love how you guys are just so candid about this.”

Santana shrugged and swiveled to rest her legs on Berry’s and Quinn’s laps. “We got over it. We basically accepted that we’re all evil bitches and we gon’ do what we gon’ do and that nothin’s gonna change that.”

“Well, that and we’re hardly ever gonna see each other soon enough, so it doesn’t even matter anymore,” Artie added.

“Well, it matters to me,” Finn muttered, still grimacing in disgust. “Thanks to Puck, I’m gonna have nightmares of old ladies trying to rape me, and because of Brit, I’m never gonna be able to look at anyone from school the same way.”

“Oh, God, Finn, now we’re _all_ going to have to those nightmares,” Bekah chirped from where she was laid out on Puck, Sam, and Kurt’s laps.

Puck’s eyes widened, and he actually grabbed her face between his hands and glared down at her. “Rebekah, you better be talking about mental images and not that you’ve actually—”

She smacked the side of his head, making everyone laugh. “God, _yes_ , mental images, jerkface! Not all of us lost our virginities at thirteen!”

“Hey, I lost mine at fourteen!” Puck countered defensively.

“Whatever, slut,” Bekah said, affectionately punching him in the chest.

“Chicky, you are just way too comfortable in this group,” Kurt said, patting her calves. “It’s like you know us as well as your brother. And for some of us, this is essentially the first time we’ve met you.”

She shrugged. “Small town, big mouths. _Especially_ when _Noah_ is your brother.”

Puck grabbed a couple locks of her hair and attempted to discreetly tangle them before Berry grabbed the pillow she was leaning against and threw it at him.

“All right, bitches,” Santana said, sitting up and throwing an arm around Berry’s shoulders. “My flight’s in a couple of hours, so I’m gonna head out soon.”

“One song!” Bekah suddenly cried, almost elbowing Sam in the face. “Please, guys? One last song?”

Berry, ever eager to please an audience pointed at Puck and smirked. Puck nodded and signaled to Artie who was closest to the sound system. The pre-loaded song was Puck’s favorite number even if he didn’t have a part. The song was just fucking awesome, and he knew Bekah loved it.

The drums gave a steady rhythm as Berry grinned at Bekah before leaping up and grabbing Beks into a twirl. _“Give me a second, I—I need to get my story straight. My friends are in the bathroom, getting higher than the empire state. My lover, he’s waiting for me just across the bar. My seat’s been taken by some sunglasses, askin’ ‘bout a scar, and—”_

 _“I know I gave it to you months ago,”_ Finn said, standing up and beating out the same rhythm on his stomach before reaching forward and spinning Bekah with one hand and twirling Berry straight toward Puck with the other. _“I know you’re trying to forget, but between the drinks and subtle things, the holes in my apologies, you know, I’m trying hard to take it back.”_

Puck pulled Berry onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her middle as she rested her hands on his shoulders. That was enough of a _go-ahead_ as he was gonna get from Finn, and he was gonna take it.

 _“So if by the time the bar closes,”_ Sam sang, lunging forward and sweeping Bekah over his shoulder as Quinn sang with him, _“and you feel like falling down, I’ll carry you home...”_

 _“Tonight,”_ the gleeks sang together for the last time. _“We are young. So let’s set the world on fire, we can burn brighter than the sun.”_

Santana suddenly reached out to pull Bekah onto the couch as Mercedes started off the girls, Bekah joining in at Tina’s prompt. _“Tonight, we are young. So let’s set the world on fire, we can burn brighter than the sun.”_

 _“Carry me home tonight,”_ Quinn sang, hopping onto Artie’s lap as Mike took his turn and waltzed Bekah around the living room. _“Just carry me home tonight.”_

 _“The angels never arrived,”_ Santana sang over the chorus of voices, _“but I can hear the choir. So will someone come and carry me home?”_

 _“Tonight,”_ Blaine reached out to hold Tina’s hand as they sang together, _“we are young. So let’s set the world on fire. We can burn brighter than the sun.”_

All the gleeks stood, much like they had that day on the stage not four months ago when they heard their name be called for first at nationals, and sang with one voice. _“Tonight, we are young. So let’s set the world on fire, we can burn brighter than the sun.”_

Puck pulled Berry’s back right up to his chest and rested his head on hers as he and a grinning Bekah took the final verse. _“So if by the time the bar closes and you feel like falling down, I’ll carry you home tonight.”_

**~oOo~**

“Noah, I still think that you’re making a bad decision,” Berry said, ripping off another bite from the Twizzler in her hand.

He rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to turn on the radio. Turning it on meant no more lecture, purely because her mouth would be too busy singing her shit on the Broadway or show tune station, but he wasn’t about to sit in a truck for another six hours listening to the entire soundtracks of _Hello,_ _Dolly!_ , _South Pacific_ , _Funny Girl_ , _The King and I_ , and _The Sound of Music._ He could admit those were classics, but even the Fathers Berry couldn’t stomach that kind of overload.

“Berry, I thought we already went over this,” Puck sighed. “Not everyone is meant for college. You had no problem backing up Hudson when he said he was gonna bum his way through Europe.”

She heaved an even heavier sigh than him before pointing her half-eaten Twizzler at him. “I hold Finn very dear to my heart, but the boy is an idiot. I understand that Finn and many other people don’t belong in college, but _you_ have so much potential to be more, Noah. I know you actually like English class because of the copious amounts of notes you’ve borrowed from me, and it’s also evident in the drastic change your vocabulary has gone through in spite of the fact that it’s still saturated with innuendo and profanities.”

“Just because I’m good at it doesn’t mean I _want_ it, Berry,” he pointed out, switching out of the carpool lane to overtake the Corvette that was going 20 under the speed limit. (He just couldn’t understand people sometimes.)

“But you could have so much more!” she cried. “If you weren’t actually planning on going to college, why did you work so hard senior year? Why did you apply to all those colleges? What was the _point_ of it all?”

He shrugged. “To prove that I _could_ —that I could get outta Lima not just ‘cause I ran away but ‘cause someplace out there actually wanted me to come to them.”

“Okay, so why don’t you actually _go_ to the people who want you there?” she asked. “Y-You worked _so_ hard to get into these colleges and now you’re just throwing it away because you never even intended on going in the first place? That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Okay, so what did you want me to do?!” Puck demanded.

“Try it out! Try out college before making the decision that it’s not for you!”

“But you’re totally letting Finn go off to Europe without doing that!”

“Finn is a _dimwit_ , and we all know the poor boy isn’t book-smart, so him going to school is pointless because he’ll just stare blankly at his professors and focus on football for the entire duration of his higher educational career which will be exactly like high school all over again! He wouldn’t get anywhere! Whereas _you_ , on the other hand, can actually succeed in class! And I _know_ you wouldn’t put so much effort into something you don’t want to cash in on, Noah! So why _aren’t_ you going to the places that want you? Why don’t you go to Rollins?”

“Because I already made prior arrangements, princess,” he answered primly, complete with one raised eyebrow.

She scowled at him before ripping off another chunk of her Twizzler, conceding temporary defeat. “Dropping me off at NYADA doesn’t count as a prior arrangement. I don’t even understand why my fathers let you do this.”

“Because even _they_ knew that you didn’t wanna take a ten-hour car ride with them. All Hiram would do is weep the entire time. Leroy would sit there and try his best to console him, but he’d give up at the three-hour mark. Then you’d be upset and shit ‘cause you hate it when either of your dads cry, and you hate it even more that the first time you ever step foot on campus, you weren’t at a hundred percent ‘cause your nose would be all snotty and your eyes would be all bloodshot and Hiram wouldn’t let you go for a solid twenty minutes.”

“You know my family and me too well,” she muttered.

He smirked and winked at her. “Just say the word, and I’ll pull over so we can get to know each other much better.”

She whacked him in the ear with the Twizzlers packet.

“Lech.”

He purposely jerked the wheel toward the shoulder, making her shriek and making himself crack up.

“Brace yourself, princess,” he said, setting the truck back in the middle of the lane. “It’s only hour four on this ten-hour ride, and I get bored real quick.”

“When you get bored, you play car games or listen to music!” she screeched, her hands still clenched around the seat. “You don’t try to get yourself killed in the middle of traffic!”

“Jesus, Berry! Did you forget who you’re with?!”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“Look, baby, you make me wake up at the ass-crack of dawn—”

“You practically forced me to ride with you!”

“But you’re the one who insisted on leaving at five in the fucking morning!”

“So that we could arrive on time for dorm check-in!” she shot back. “And stop with the f-word, Noah!”

“Dorm check-in is basically just a heads-up for you to move in! Your room is already reserved, Berry! You could get in whenever the hell you want!”

“But—”

“It’s like _Pirates of the Caribbean_ ,” he explained. “ _They’re more guidelines than actual rules._ ”

“But I have to be prompt or else I’ll be giving my RA a bad first impression and be labeled a diva who arrives on her own time and—”

“Okay, let me put it this way: if you’re ‘prompt’ at arriving, you are gonna end up lugging all your shit up the stairs to God-knows-what-floor because the elevators will be jam-packed with other students dragging up their own shit.”

“But I have you!”

“Berry!”

“Well, it’s not like you’ve got your own dorm to worry about,” she groused, sitting back against the seat.

“Oh, don’t be starting this shit again.”

“I will start whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want,” she retorted petulantly.

All these big words just coming out. Jesus.

“And furthermore, as soon as you and I come, everyone will know and will give us a wide berth.”

Puck slowly turned and smirked evilly. He just found his car game. “That’s what she said.”

**~oOo~**

“—and I don’t know how he managed to get it in, so I assumed that Dad came home and helped him.”

“That’s what she said.”

Berry finally screamed in frustration. “Is this ever going to stop?!”

“That’s what she said.”

“Noah!”

“Okay, now throw your head back, gasp, and say my name again.”

“All right, _fine_! I promise to not switch it to a show tune-related station if you just _please_ turn on the radio!”

Puck laughed and finally switched on the music, but as soon as the first sounds started, she screeched, “Don’t change it!”

“Berry—”

“It’s not a show tune!”

They glared at each other before he finally gave in. He’d actually heard the song couple of times before—small price to pay for hanging out with Hummel and Anderson.

 _“Now I bet you won’t say you get crazy or that you don’t shave your legs when you’re lazy,”_ Puck sang along, making faces and poking her long, tanned leg and making her laugh. _“You’re just like everybody else in the world, you just got lucky, that’s all. Now I know you’re not here to amuse me, but you sure know how to confuse me.”_

She grabbed his hand and used it as a makeshift mic so she could sing along, _“So if I could just ask you once again to tell me what it’s like to be a star on the rise, a breakfast cereal prize. Tell me what it’s like to be the one and only all-American girl.”_

She laughed as he yanked his hand back and changed the station once the song ended.

“How about we play a game?” she asked as he scanned through the stations.

“If you say ‘I Spy,’ so help me God, I will pull over and leave you on the side of the road,” he threatened.

She narrowed her eyes, calling his bluff. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Okay, yeah, that was true, but he was the Puckzilla. He had other means of screwing with his girl. And not just in the literal sense. “No, but I got nothing against stealing all your panties.”

She glared at him. “You don’t even know which bags they’re in, Noah.”

“The purple one with the gold star stickers on the handle,” he answered smugly. “I have a sixth sense for these things, sweetheart.”

She shot him a longsuffering look, but it didn’t pack as much of a punch since she was blushing. “You have a built-in compass for underwear?”

“No,” he replied. Then he turned to smirk and wink at her again. “Just _yours_.”

“ _Anyways_ ,” she growled, “what I was _trying_ to say before you completely derailed the conversation was that we should make a deal.”

“I thought you wanted to play a _game_ , Berry, not make a deal.”

“It’s both,” she amended. “You give me the most random song to sing along to, and you let me listen to one of _my_ songs.”

“No,” Puck responded flatly. “No. Your songs can last, like, ten minutes. It’s not a fair deal.”

“ _Fine_ , then we’ll do it by time. If the song I want to sing is ten minutes long, you can make me sing three of your songs.”

Puck sighed and rested his wrist on the top of the steering wheel. “Why are _you_ doing all the singing? I mean, don’t get me wrong, baby, you’ve got a killer set of pipes, but you’re not a human jukebox. I can think of a hundred different ways for you to use your mouth without abusing your vocal cords.”

She stared at him with his unreadable expression, like she totally couldn’t understand if she should be offended by the gist of what he said, impressed with his vocabulary (or rather the lack of cuss words), or flattered that he cared about abusing her vocal cords. He was just so fucking proud of himself.

“All right, _fine_ , how about we listen to talk radio?” she offered.

He laughed. “You _hate_ talk radio. You hate it when people broadcast their lame-ass drama for everyone to hear and comment on.”

“Well, it’s preferable to the insufferable game you’ve made out of everyday conversation,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting.

“It’s not my fault you make it so easy,” he countered.

“You could at least _try_ to be a gentleman and rise to the challenge of not—”

He didn’t even let her finish as he nearly banged his head on the steering wheel. “Like _that_! Listen to what you just said and tell me how easy it is for me to give you a dirty response to that!”

She frowned for a second and then blushed. “Well, can’t you just take my words at face value and stop reading so much into it?”

“I’m a dude, baby! My skull is basically the gutter and since my brain’s always gonna be in it, you’re gonna have to blow out the back of my head to make it stop!”

And then he immediately went to her blowing something else, but apparently he developed some sort of tell when his thoughts were dive-bombing from the gutter and straight into hell because she smacked him on the shoulder.

“Stop it!”

“I’m not doing anything!” he cried innocently, rubbing his shoulder. For someone with small hands, her slaps _sting_.

“The corners of your mouth go up just a little bit and your right eyebrow just _shoots_ up, Noah, I _know_ you!” she screeched, smacking him again.

He just laughed.

Four more hours of torturing Berry to go.

**~oOo~**

“Noah?”

“Jesus, Berry. Do you have to pee again? Did I impregnate you with a look, and now our hot-as-fuck future heartbreaker of a child is using your bladder as a soccer ball?”

“I honestly don’t know how your brain functions with all those rocks rolling around up there, Noah.”

“Oh! Berry’s got balls!”

“More than you, I’m sure.”

“Whoa.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“This can’t be happening.”

“It did.”

“Oh, my goodness. I don’t understand this.”

“I’ve undone about seventeen years of Rachel Berry-ness in less than eight hours.”

“The shame...”

“It’s okay, Berry. Just plug in your earphones, listen to your Broadway playlist, and you’ll be back to normal soon enough.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Noah, stop derailing what I was trying to say!”

“You were the one wallowing in shame, like, two seconds ago!”

“Oh, forget it!”

“No! What were you gonna say?!”

“No. The moment has been lost.”

“Well, get it back!”

“I can’t just flail around for it! Once it’s gone, it’s gone!”

“No, it ain’t! You’re Rachel Fucking Berry! You command that shit to come back, and it’ll slink back with its tail between its legs!”

“As crude of a compliment as that was, I refuse to command anything to come back. You’re just going to make it run away again.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“I’m so sure.”

“Please? Princess?”

She turned to look at him with her big, brown eyes and he knew that this was gonna be a question where he couldn’t fuck up the answer.

“You threw slushies at me, you wrote rude things about me in bathroom stalls, you contributed to the pool of mean nicknames for me, and you essentially announced that I made you want to light yourself on fire. What changed?”

He could say it was because he realized that her brand of batshit-crazy was his favorite.

He could say it was because she was Jewish.

He could say it was because even God Himself wanted him to get into her pants.

He could say a billion other stupid things to be his normal shit-disturbing self, but honestly...

“I just _got_ you, Berry. Even though you were kinda psycho and you demanded roles and solos like you were the only who could play and sing them, I just... _understood_ where you were coming from.”

She blinked at him.

“I told kids to give me their money ‘cause I knew _asking_ for it was stupid. You did the same thing. You _demanded_ all the solos because you knew that asking for it meant the risk of being turned down.”

“I wouldn’t take no for an answer, and you didn’t _care_ about the answer.”

“And I _liked_ that. You’re crazy as all fuck, but I respected that about you. You didn’t back down. It was badass.”

“But you still threw slushies at me in spite of that?”

“Shit’s intimidating. And I guess a part of me wanted to see if you would break. But you didn’t. I had to give you props for that no matter what.”

“But?”

“But then you started changing. At first it was cool since you started being a legit team player, but then you just started caving.”

“To Finn.”

“You said it, not me.”

“I could hear it implied, Noah.”

“It was true, though. You jumped down from your pedestal and shoved _him_ up there instead.”

“I thought I was being selfless for once.”

“You just misunderstood the word, Berry. You ended up _being_ less of yourself instead of _thinking_ _of_ _yourself_ less. And I didn’t want that shit to continue but not enough to actually get up there and make it stop, you know?”

“But you did the Barbravention.”

“Well, you gave me no fucking choice with that. Jesus.”

“What was the breaking point, though?”

“Of what?”

“O-Of your passive stance on my life, I suppose.”

“When Finn got Quinn to cheat on Sam. Guy was an even bigger dick than me ‘cause he didn’t even learn from my obvious fuck-ups. And I respected you too much to think he was good enough for you to get back with again.”

She sat there quietly for a couple minutes before chuckling a little. “You know, we’re a lot more alike than we initially thought.”

“Of course. We’re two badass, good-looking Jews.”

She laughed. “Aside from that, _of_ _course_. You and I demanded things, took it into our own hands if things weren’t going our way. We deluded ourselves into believing in our entitlement, never really realizing that it was a coping mechanism for the fear of rejection. And when people actually started standing up to us, we had to assert ourselves, thus giving off our famous psycho and badass personas—not caring about anyone else if it didn’t directly benefit us. You and I just wanted to be above it all. You wanted to shut out the world, and I wanted to be on top of it. But now...?”

“We grew up. Realized that there was a lot more shit to complicate our lives than we thought.”

“We got through it, but it’s left its scars.”

He smiled at her. “We just wanted things too much.”

Then she reached out and ran her hand over the side of his scalp and then carded her fingers down his Mohawk, finally curling them around the back of his neck. It was dangerous as hell, but he couldn’t look away from her face.

“We’re two crazy, badass Jews, Noah.”

**~oOo~**

“Jesus _Christ_ , Berry! What the hell did you pack in here?! Dumbbells?!” he gasped, dropping the 800lb box onto the middle of the room.

“Oh, please, Noah,” she scoffed from where she was sitting on the floor, surrounded by the pieces of her new IKEA desk. “I know how to make use of the school’s training facilities. I didn’t need to bring any exercise materials except for my yoga mat. That box merely contains my books.”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing with _literally_ a ton of books, baby? You know they’ve got a library here too, right?”

She waved her hand at him dismissively as she continued frowning at the instruction manual. “That’s just my personal collection. Make yourself useful and assemble my bookcase and my bed please.”

He rolled his eyes and turned to start ripping off the cardboard and clear plastic, knowing that he’d finish both by the time she’d barely put two pieces together.

And he was right. About an hour later, her bed was assembled, her bookcase was standing at the corner, and she was _still_ sitting on the floor, glaring at the instruction manual as if it was actually forming insults right before her eyes.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Puck sighed, sliding his hands under her arms and heaving her onto her feet easily. “You go organize your shit, and leave this to me.”

“I am perfectly capable—”

“Of finishing this next year,” he finished, nudging her toward her 800lb box of books that belonged on her new bookcase. “I know, baby, I know.”

“I cannot fall under the stereotype of the girl that needs a man to do menial work for her, you know,” she huffed, yanking open one of her boxes and pulling out freshly-laundered sheets. “I need to be able to stand on my own two feet and develop my craftsmanship skills.”

“You need to develop your instruction manual-reading skills first,” Puck quipped. “Is this really that fucking difficult to decipher? This like a puzzle with instructions, Berry. Come on.”

“There’s too many extraneous details that are involved, and they all look too much alike and the pictures don’t do them justice! God forbid all the screws be the same size!”

“One of these days, I’m gonna have to give you a thorough lesson on building shit.”

“Not if your lessons are laced with obscenities,” she said snippily, finishing up her bed. “If you insist on being a teacher, you’re going to have to speak like one. I refuse to let any of my lessons  be tainted or associated with extreme vulgarities.”

He sucked on his teeth as he slowly stood and turned to stare at her. “I refuse to acquiesce to your ludicrous demands. I will speak however I choose to speak, notwithstanding the obscene amount of lectures you’ve forced on me concerning the proper use of the English language. A man can speak like an illiterate heathen or be a mute, but either way, he cannot be judged correctly for no one knows the true depth of his knowledge.”

And he had officially filled his quota for big words for the next five years.

Then he turned back to Berry’s desk and continued to screw one panel into place.

“Noah?”

“S’up, Berry?” he sighed without turning around.

“We’re in New York now.”

You’d think there was this dramatic pause where he’d drop the panel and the screwdriver and let the desk crash onto the floor in its original pieces as he stood and turned to face her ‘cause it just now hit him that she was _officially his girlfriend_.

Nope.

Nothing very dramatic about it at all. He literally went from having a screwdriver in one hand and half a desk in the other to having one hand tangled in Berry’s hair and the other arm wrapped around her waist tightly.

Fuck desks and unpacking and books and shelves and the cheeseburger he’d been craving for the last hour and a half. At that moment, he only had one goal in mind: thoroughly reacquainting himself with Berry Lips. And since they were _them_ , it only took about a minute for them to be horizontal on her bed, and Puck was being introduced to the promised land that was Rachel Berry’s surprisingly hot ass.

“Just do you know, Berry,” he murmured against her lips. “You’re totally my steady girlfriend. Every string attached. I’m all fucking in.”

“Noah?”

“Mmm?”

“Shut up.”

Oh, yeah. Gonna be _legendary_.

Her lips inched away from his as she kissed along the side of his nose, his cheek, his jaw, and then up to nibble on his earlobe. His eyes rolled up to the back of his head as she practically sat right on his hips and kissed the sensitive skin under his ear. The smell of her, the feel of her hair against his face, her fingers scratching the tail of his Mohawk, the sound of her breaths, the taste of her strawberry lip balm, and the way she grinded her hips against him was too much for his brain to deal with at the time, so he flipped them over, deftly attaching his lips to her neck to forever mark her as the girl who walked into her first day of college classes with a star-shaped hickey.

He ignored the fifth time his phone rang as she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer. He could tell from her shallow breaths that he was pretty big and she was still his little midget, so he was _kind_ _of_ squishing her, but since he couldn’t stop ‘cause he sure as shit wasn’t gonna let her walk around with three random-ass spikes on her neck, he did the next best thing. He planted one hand on the small of her back and the other on the base of her neck and lifted her onto his lap as he sat up and shifted around so he was leaning against the headboard—all while he was still working on the fourth point of her star. Fucking connoisseur indeed.

“Noah!”

“Mhm?”

“Your phone is ringing,” she muttered, leaning her head back to give him some more room to maneuver. “It needs to stop.”

“Ignore it.”

She growled—legit, _growled_ —before actually reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his phone. It shocked him enough to nip her neck a little too hard so that when she actually _answered_ _the_ _phone_ , she let out a squeak and a little gasp.

“Um, Puck?”

“S-Sam?”

“Rach? Oh. Hey. Where’s Puck?”

“He’s a little busy right now.”

“Oh, helping you set up your dorm?”

“Mmm, _definitely_. He’s, uh, h-helping me put up my stars.”

Puck chuckled against her neck and finished up the fifth and final point of her star.

“Oh, my God. Okay. Just tell him I’ve crossed the border. He’ll know what I mean.”

“I’ll, um, yeah, just...so busy...and it’s warm, so we’re just gonna...”

“Oh, my God,” Sam choked out before hanging up.

Rachel tossed the phone over her shoulder before wrenching Puck’s head up from her neck and latching her lips back onto his. He kissed her for another couple of minutes before maneuvering them back to the edge of the bed and pulling away.

“I gotta go, baby.”

 _“What?”_ she demanded, dragging his head back down to hers.

“Berry, I’ve gotta go,” he said against her lips as he attempted to pry her off his lap.

“No, Noah,” she whined. “I don’t want to sound like the typified clingy girlfriend so soon into our reunion, but—”

“Baby, it’s fine. I’ll be back before you know it,” he assured her, stroking her thighs and kissing the side of her face.

“No, you won’t,” she protested sadly, glaring at him and pouting her swollen pink lips. “It’ll be weeks or months before I see you again, and God knows where you’ll be—”

“Weeks? _Months_?” he echoed in shock. “The hell? Shit, Rach, I meant a couple of _hours_.”

She pulled back and frowned at him with wide eyes, her fingernails sinking into his shoulders. “Where are you going?”

“The movers are gonna be at the apartment in a couple of minutes and I have to let them in. Plus I have to clear some shit up with NYU since Sam and I are living off campus.”

Puck watched her face as his words slowly registered. She went from sad to confused to shocked to angry and then finally to fucking ecstatic.

 _“WHAT?!”_ she shrieked, bouncing on his lap excitedly.

He grinned and squeezed her hips. “You heard me. I’ve got _college_ _shit_ to attend to.”

“B-B-But you said—”

He grinned even wider and ran his hands up and down her sides. “I never actually flat-out said I wasn’t going to college, baby.”

“You m-mean...?”

He pulled her close and pecked her on the lips. “Double major in music and business. I’ve got my sights set on being a music producer.”

She still couldn’t form a coherent sentence. “B-B-But—”

“Surprise, Rach,” he said, pecking her on the lips again. “Sam and I both got into NYU—he’s going for an English degree and minoring in music too. Since we figured out that it’d be cheaper to get an apartment than stay in those godforsaken dorms, his mom and dad decided to get us our own place since Stevie got a role in that one movie and Stacy’s the main chick in that other movie. Satan wanted to join us, but her mom’s forcing her to stay in the NYU dorms so she can be closer to her professors what with the whole law school thing. She’s really gonna get to crackin’ those books or however you call it. So we’re all here, babe.”

“I...I can’t believe y-you didn’t tell me!”

He shrugged and brushed her hair back from her face. “I didn’t get you a graduation present.”

And _then_ she was screaming and bouncing and kissing him and hugging him and just _flipping_ _out_ in general.

“OH, MY GOD! I-I HAVE TO TELL DAD AND DADDY! THEY’LL BE SO PROUD OF—”

“Told them four months ago,” he said, smirking. “S’why they let me drive you up here. They knew I wanted to surprise you.”

She whacked him in the chest for keeping it a secret from her and then threw herself at him again.

By the time he finally managed to get out of her dorm, she’d been pressed up against the closet door with her skirt pushed up around her hips her shirt halfway off. She had a fresh new star hickey right above her left boob, and he was pretty sure he had scratch marks rising out of the collar of his shirt on the back of his neck. Sam took in the fact that his shirt was on inside-out when Puck finally got to the apartment, grinned, congratulated the blushing Jew who immediately went off to assemble their furniture, and then sent a mass text:

_To: Group: TBJP Operatives  
Mission accomplished. Puckleberry is on._

**~oOo~**

In the four years Puck and Rachel dated, they got in only three serious fights. Oh, yeah, sure they broke up a _lot_ , making Sam, Santana, Kurt, Artie, and eventually Blaine want to rip their hair out on a regular basis, but those were just lame fights about hairstyles, salmon, and Jesse St. James’s coming-out party and its hidden _Three’s_ _Company_ motives.

The first one was a month into their first semester, and Puck was still fresh off his help-the-gleeks-fulfill-their-dreams high, and his plans for Berry still weren’t finished, so he was getting impatient.

He couldn’t just take the decision out of her hands, much like he’d done with the others—except for Blaine because that honestly was a bullshit favor because it wasn’t even helping him at all; that would have to be redone in the future. He loved and respected her too much to not give her a choice—regardless of whether or not this was for her own good. But him trying to do the right thing resulted in a massive fight.

After she’d found out about all the other things he’d done for her—Brittany’s plan, moving the Glist, and writing “Pretending”—she’d mused out loud about how she’d ever manage to pay him back, and since the opportunity presented itself, he made his request.

“Transfer out of NYADA.”

Noah Puckerman is smart. He knows big words, he knows how to use them in sentences, and he most definitely knows how to form those sentences correctly.

He asked her to transfer.

She only heard the last three words.

He understood her anger, her feelings of betrayal. He knew that she already had a bad experience of someone asking her to give up her dreams. She demanded to know why he was asking her to do this, and even though it killed him to see her crying because of him, he could only say, “Trust me.”

He was doing this for her. He was leaving the decision to her, but he was also testing her trust and how far she really was willing to go for him. It was a messed-up test, but it needed to be done. Rachel was afraid of not being able to attain her dreams, but he was afraid of being abandoned, of being taken advantage of.

They still had some maturing to do.

They didn’t talk for a month.

The gleeks—the ones finishing up high school, the ones in different states, and the one who was bumming through Europe—all knew about the fight. They all knew what Puck was asking for, but they couldn’t figure out why he would possibly ask for that. Except for Sam. Sam knew pretty much everything. He knew what Puck was doing, and it was his assurances that kept the gleeks from bombarding Puck with messages demanding to know what the fuck he was trying to pull.

After a month of missing his voice, his lewd jokes, his warmth, his smile— _him_ —Rachel caved. She was waiting for him as soon as he stepped out of his economics class, armed with a mocha and a transfer application.

“You were _always_ the one encouraging me to follow my dreams,” she said to his shoes. “So I know when you ask me to trust you, you’re doing something that won’t jeopardize that.”

She looked up at him, big brown eyes making him feel warm and _home_.

“I trust you, Noah.”

He led her to a patio table outside the building, took an appreciative sip of the mocha, and fished out the transfer application to Juilliard.

She was sobbing quietly as he held on to her face, having dragged her chair right up to his. “You deserve the _best_ , Rach. And NYADA is just some random-ass college you only ever heard of your senior year; Juilliard’s always been the top. Jesus, did you think I was gonna ask you to move to OSU with me or something? Shit.”

By her sophomore year, she was one of Juilliard’s best and brightest.

Their second fight was about the one thing Puck thought they’d never have to fight over. _Sex_. Truthfully, it wasn’t an argument as much as a sore spot between them.

Rachel, having reverted back to her pre-Finn self, also reverted back to her previous stance. Marriage or 25—whichever came first. Her giving up her virginity to Finn wasn’t a regret—as much as it ticked Noah off when she told him that—but she’d disappointed herself. She’d broken a promise to herself, to her fathers, and to her faith. If it was wasn’t for her enthusiasm when she and Puck were making out, he would’ve thought that she honestly doubted sleeping with him because of his past. But she was more than willing to touch (and _more_ ) every other base but home.

Aviva Puckerman had raised her son right. When Rachel told him her choice (after he brought her to climax a grand total of four times—through different means, obviously), he didn’t dispute her. In fact, he didn’t say a word. He respected her decision, but it pretty much goes without saying that he wasn’t exactly jumping for joy about it. He’d kissed her forehead, pulled his clothes back on, and went on a bender. His old insecurities about not living up to Finn’s standards bubbled over as Jack Daniels got lower and lower.

Surprisingly, it was Kurt who finally yanked the bottle away from Puck. His explanation was simple enough: “She loves you more than she could’ve ever loved Finn. That’s why she thought she had to give it up to him and why she wants to save herself for you. You’re her fairy-tale now, Puck, and just like how you wanted to do it right this time around, so does she.”

That’s why a month after they graduated, they were married.

But their upcoming nuptials led to their third and final major argument: her name. Unlike the last two times, this was actually a full-fledged, shouting-match type fight that drove all but the two out of the Berry household where they’d been planning the wedding. If the gleeks, the Fathers Berry, Aviva, and Bekah didn’t know Rachel and Puck as well as they did, the cops would’ve been called a long, long time ago.

Rachel saw the logic and sentiment in her argument, and she thought Puck was just being irrational. Puck saw the logic and sentiment in his argument, and he thought Rachel was just taking batshit-crazy and selfish to a whole new level.

For twenty years, all she’d ever wanted was her name in lights, and while she would be legally Rachel Puckerman, her stage name would be Rachel Berry. Puck argued that while she had already gotten a part in an off-Broadway show, her changing her name wouldn’t disrupt her career and “Puckerman” was now as much her name as “Berry” was. And honestly? He just wanted his wife to have his name.

After a solid four hours of nonstop screaming that ensured their children would have normal speaking tones that could rival a megaphone, Puck caved. After all, he knew just how much Rachel wanted this and he had been and always would be one of her primary supporters. She would sign all official documents with his name, but autographs, playbills, billboards, and marquees would be emblazoned with her maiden name. He loved her too much to be fighting so much over something so stupid. Even if it was irrational of him to hold such a small thing in high regard.

The wedding went off without a hitch. Considering Kurt and Santana planned the whole thing, hitches feared for their lives and therefore stayed far away from that particular wedding.

Puck had his expectations. He knew that Rachel loved being in the spotlight, so he assumed that she would be in a gorgeous poofy princess dress with diamonds sewn in, but it was Blaine who warned him not to expect _anything_ as he stood there at the chuppah. And of course, Blaine was right. Flanked on either side by her fathers, she wore a simple white gown with her hair down and flowing, much like it had in his dream all those years ago, as she walked down the aisle to a song he’d written and recorded himself. There weren’t any lyrics, just a soft sweet melody he’d composed when she was cleaning his apartment their junior year. It was _their song_. He wasn’t ashamed of the couple tears that slipped out as she walked toward him with a smile that temporarily washed everyone out in a bright white light.

Hiram hugged Puck after the Fathers Berry handed Puck Rachel’s hand, and Leroy grabbed Puck’s shoulder tightly, hissed a threat, and then hugged the boy anyway with a teasing grin before they both stepped back.

Unbeknownst to everyone except Santana the maid of honor, Sam the best man, and Rabbi Greenburg, Rachel tripped just a little when she came up, but Puck held tight and grinned down at her to whisper, “At least you didn’t fall and break your talent.”

Needless to say, Aviva wept that entire day—from when she woke up at five in the morning to when she slept at four in morning. She wept through the ceremony, through the reception, and even through the meals. Everyone within a thousand mile radius heard her triumphant scream when Puck smashed the glass.

The reception was decorated in reds and golds because according to Brittany, Puckleberry loved reds and golds. And no one was about to dispute that—not even Puckleberry itself. The cake was dark chocolate with white chocolate icing and covered in a red fondant, decorated like sweeping, furling curtains in honor of Rachel’s Broadway career while the twirling music staff that swept along the cake was in honor of Puck’s music. Their first dance was Rachel’s dream song sung by Santana: Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me,” whose lyrics amused everyone involved in Operation Thundering Blitzkrieg of Jewish Puckleberry.

The garter was scarlet red, of course. It matched the shade of Rachel’s face when Puck emerged from under her skirt (after trailing kisses up and down her leg). It also flung straight into Sam’s face, making _him_ turn bright red too. Rachel’s bouquet, made of lilies and orchids, landed right in Bekah’s hands, causing Puck to have a mini-panic attack and for Aviva’s sobs to start anew with twice as much vigor as before.  
   
And that night, as Puck finally peeled off the last of his new wife’s clothes, she presented him with the _actual_ conclusion of their argument: her new show’s playbill with her name, Rachel Puckerman.


	14. Brittany

**_November 2023_ **

“Oh, my God, are you sure this kid is your son?” Finn demanded, finally breaking and losing the staring contest between himself and three year-old Isaiah Samuel.

The simple question was answered with a resounding _smack_ , courtesy of the football Isaiah’s five year-old brother, Jonathan Noah, had decided to throw.

Apparently, pregnancy put Rachel on two modes: mellow and weepy. She never got mad, she never went psychotic, she was just _super_ chill or _super_ weepy. Which meant that all her dormant psychotic-ness combined with Puck’s own brand of crazy into what Kurt loved to call “the hell spawn”—aka Jonny. On the other hand, Isaiah got all of the mellow genes that must have been for his brother. Their new little sister Caroline Leah, though, was the wild card.

“‘Course he’s my brother!” Jonny protested, emphasizing his statement by throwing his soccer ball at the back of Finn’s head.

“Jon, stop throwing things at Uncle Finn,” Puck scolded his eldest son. “He can’t afford to have more of his brain cells knocked loose.”

“ _So_ glad to see nothing’s changed,” Mercedes laughed from where she, Tina, Brittany, Quinn, Santana, and Emma were crowded around Rachel and newborn baby Caroline.

“Trust me,” Kurt sighed from where he sat at the counter with Hiram, sipping wine. “For as long as the Puckerman genes will be passed on, nothing will _ever_ change.”

“Yeah,” Blaine agreed.“Every generation’s gonna have a _Puck_ running around and insulting people. No offense, Aviva.”

Aviva hauled Isaiah off Finn’s lap and cuddled him against her chest. “Feh.”

Puck chortled and yanked the baseball out of Jonny’s hand before he could chuck it at Finn’s head. “She doesn’t care as long as she’s got her Jewish grandbabies.”

“Well, what am I?! Chopped liver?!” Beth demanded, poking her head over the kitchen counter where she, Shelby, and Leroy were setting up the food. Her chagrin at being a half-Jew had always been a sore spot—especially during Hanukkah.

“No, honey,” Puck cooed. “You’re more _spleen_ than liver.”

“I hate you,” she grumbled, disappearing over the counter again.

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

Beth had been told about her birth parents when she was five, but even back then, she took it all in her stride. As much as Puck and Quinn wanted to be considered “Dad” and “Mom,” they knew it’d be too complicated, so they settled for being “Uncle Puck” and “Aunt Quinn” while Shelby remained “Mom” and her husband of eight years, Ben, became “Daddy.” They still couldn’t decide what the relationship was between Beth and Jonny, Isaiah, and Caroline though—aunt and nephews and niece or half-siblings? It was all jacked up, but it worked well enough. Beth loved Jonny and Isaiah, and she’d already called babysitting dibs on Caroline.

“How’s Aria, Finn?” Tina asked, pulling Jonny back from where he was trying to dive-bomb off the couch.

Finn grinned goofily and leaned back against the couch, throwing his arms over the back. His eyes softened at the thought of the Canadian saint of a woman he’d met in Paris all those years ago that was currently at their home in London, Ontario packing for a short car trip. “She’s _great_ , but since she’s too big to travel by plane, so she decided to visit her mom in Toronto.”

“When is she due again?” Emma asked, stroking Caroline’s hair from where the baby was being rocked in Brittany’s arms.

“February,” Finn said proudly. “He’s gonna be a big boy; she’s so big already.”

“Oh, God, Sasquatch Junior,” Santana sighed disappointedly.

“Santana,” Rachel said warningly as she sat on the armrest closest to Puck. She absently ran her hand through his closely-cropped hair as she turned to Finn. “Have you thought of any names?”

“How about Jet?” Santana offered innocently.

“JET PUFF!” Jonny cried ecstatically, making Finn spin and glare at Santana, who just threw her head back and laughed.

“Auntie Tana, be nice,” Isaiah scolded with a small frown.

Santana immediately sobered and scooped up her favorite little Puckerman. “Sorry, _bendito_.”

Finn stared at the sight in complete disbelief before turning to Puck and Rachel. “Are you _sure_ he’s your son?!”

Rachel smiled, and her hand strayed down to rub Puck’s shoulders, making his eyes threaten to roll back into his head.

“You should see him when anyone gets too mean,” she said proudly. “Noah says he looks just like me—all righteous indignation, fighting for the underdog.”

Puck scoffed. “You make it sound like a good thing, baby.”

Her massage turned into a smack upside his head, and she bent down to his ear to whisper, “You know it gets you hot.”

He yanked her back before she could pull away, and he whispered in a gravelly tone, “Don’t start anything you can’t finish, Puckerman. I know you hate leaving your guests unattended, but if you keep it up, we’re gonna be putting on a show.”

She laughed lightly and kissed his cheek before going off to the kitchen to help Shelby, Leroy, and Beth.

“So, Puck,” Mike said, smirking as he deftly caught the basketball Jonny threw at him. “Tell us about what happened with Blaine.”

“Oh, _dear_ _Lord_!” Rachel cried from the kitchen as Santana, Kurt, and Artie burst out laughing.

“What? What? What?” Brittany demanded, head swiveling back and forth between Blaine, Mike, and Puck as she jiggled Caroline in her arms.

“Oh, God!” Quinn laughed. “Is this the—”

“Don’t spoil it, Q!” Santana shrieked hysterically, slapping her hand over Quinn’s mouth.

Blaine and Puck immediately turned to face each other, and even though they were a solid twenty feet away, they still managed to break out the rock-paper-scissors. Twenty-nine and twenty-eight years-old, and they still settled their arguments with rock-paper-scissors. Puck won, and Blaine sighed, taking a swig of his beer before launching into the story.

“Okay, remember Operation Thundering Blitzkrieg of Jewish Puckleberry?”

“PUCKLEBERRY!” Jonny and Isaiah chorused with their arms in the air just like how Uncle Sammy taught them to do every time the name was spoken.

Everyone laughed at the reaction and the memory itself.

“Oh, God, yes,” Rory chuckled, smiling warmly. “Some of my fondest memories of high school.”

“I’d consider those more _amusing-in-retrospect_ than _fond_ ,” Will said, grimacing a little.

“Don’t hate, Schue. It got you the Tony sitting on your mantel back in Lima,” Puck said, holding up a hand and glancing at the three golden statues sitting on his own mantel.

Blaine chuckled and then began. “Well, in my junior year at Tisch, Puck decided that his favor to me didn’t count because Santana staged the whole thing and that aside from letting me get out some bottled-up aggression, it didn’t qualify as something that really helped me. So he decided to do a re-do, and since he already told Rachel about his plans, she decided to get in on it too.”

“I knew he’d try to pull off something stupid, so I hoped that me being part of the team would cause him to think twice about risking incarceration,” Rachel said defensively.

“The plan, I guess, was pretty simple,” Blaine said. “Apparently being gay is like walking around with a floating, giant red arrow pointing down at you like a beacon for bullies. So even in _college_ , I had these boneheads trying to push me around. Because of _that_ , Sam and Santana got involved, and everyone knows when Sam, Santana, and Puck decide to do something stupid, not even Rachel can counteract it with her logic and level-headedness. So in a similar fashion to the rest of you, Puck’s plan was to essentially _torture_ me before helping me realize that he was, in fact, _helping_ me. And unfortunately, since he knew about my less-than-pacifistic secret extracurricular activities outside of Dalton as well as the particular bar where my bullies liked to frequent, his plan began to take on the appearance of Santana’s.”

“What do you mean?” Tina asked worriedly.

Blaine sighed and glared at Puck who was determined to keep from cracking a smile even though he was practically holding his breath already. “At the time, I had no idea about the bar, so when Artie, Santana, Sam, Puck, and Rachel invited me and Kurt to tag along, I didn’t think too much about the bar we were going to, and I didn’t even spot the group until it was too late.”

“The group that he failed to mention comprised of two thirds of the NYU men’s wrestling team,” Puck cut in blandly.

“What?!” Leroy barked from the kitchen. “Why didn’t you ever tell us about this?!”

“You live in Lima,” Kurt said, shrugging. “What could you do?”

Puck grabbed Jonny and clamped his hands over his son’s ears while Santana took her cue and did the same to Isaiah.

“Okay,” Puck said, taking over the explanation quickly before his son squirmed away, “our strategy was just to push Blaine into their little group and have him open up his can of whoop-ass. We sent Rachel and San into their group to keep flirting with them and buying them drinks until they were blasted out of their minds while Sam and I distracted Blaine and Kurt from noticing the wrestlers by telling them the story of Sam losing a bet and having to go drag where he got hit on by another drag. When Rachel finally signaled to us, we asked Blaine to bring us a new round, and as soon as he was out of his chair, I ducked around the crowd, hid behind some guy, and tripped Blaine when he was a couple feet from the wrestlers so that he fell into the group and knocked over a bunch of drinks.”

Jonny finally squirmed away to crawl up onto the couch and jump onto Finn’s shoulder.

“Needless to say,” Blaine continued, the morally-dubious part of the plan having been censored, “Zachary Delgado and his crew were less than pleased. They started throwing around insults and threats, and I could’ve ended it all amicably if Vic Altillo hadn’t said the stupidest thing he could’ve ever said in the presence of one Miss Rachel Berry.”

All eyes swiveled to Rachel.

“What did he say?” Shelby asked eagerly, leaning against the counter.

“Everyone, grab a child and cover some ears,” Rachel commanded, grabbing Beth for herself. Once all little ears were covered—even the baby’s because Brittany didn’t want to leave the little dumpling out—Rachel finally whispered the word, “Fag.”

“And she went and opened her own can of whoop-ass before Puck, Sam, Blaine, and I could catch her,” Santana gushed proudly. “The most fucking epic thing I’d ever seen.”

Everyone holding little ears finally released them, and Santana continued a more censored commentary.

“She pulled her fist back and just punched that Vic guy in the face, and it pretty much opened the floodgates for the rest of us to join the fight,” she said. “We went ham on those idiots!”

Brittany frowned. “You bought them ham?”

“No, honey,” Santana said, leaning over to press a kiss on Brittany’s cheek. “We beat them up.”

“Okay, that is a _horrible_ embellishment!” Rachel called, holding up a righteous index finger. “For one thing, there were more than ten of them— _including_ their trampy girlfriends who tried stealing my earrings right out of my ears!”

“WHAT?!” Brittany screeched worriedly.

“Chill, Pierce, no one died,” Puck said.

She visibly sighed in relief as if those involved in the fight weren’t even there.

“Santana makes it sound like we’ve all been harboring some inner fight club ninja, but we were _severely_ outnumbered,” Rachel explained.

“And Rae makes it sound like we lost the fight!” Santana shot right back. “We all pulled out some crazy fight skills! It was a full-on _bar brawl_ by the time the cops broke everything up! Those guys never bothered Blaine again, and they totally ended up giving him props for being a mean little fighting machine.”

“Oh, _yes_ , it was such a fantastic night that we had to call Dad and Daddy to wire Quinn money and beg her to drive up from Yale and bail us all out!” Rachel cried, throwing her hands up in the air.

Quinn literally fell off the armchair from laughing so hard, her face so red that Emma rushed to her side worrying about asphyxiation. “R-R-Rachel had a black eye and a bracelet tangled in her hair, and Santana had b-b-bite marks on her _forehead._ ”

“Sam had a bald spot!” Rachel shrieked, feeling suddenly defensive.

“Oh, God, _yes_!” Santana laughed, setting Isaiah down on Will’s lap. “Where is Trouty Mouth? I wanna show off the scar!”

“The _scar_?!” Emma cried in horror.

“Oh, yes,” Kurt said. “Sam didn’t get a chunk of his hair ripped out, no. He was _scalped._ ”

“Where is that dimwit anyway? He said he was gonna change his shirt ‘cause he spilled some soda on it, but it’s been, like, twenty minutes,” Puck muttered, getting up to his feet and heading toward the laundry room.

“Yo, Sammy!” he called out as he pushed the door to the laundry room open. “You’re such a girl! Just pick a shirt and—OH, MY GOD! WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“NOAH!” Rachel shrieked, banging on the counter with a metal spoon in hopes of drowning out his profanity so that Jonny and Isaiah couldn’t hear.

Puck had made a serious effort to cut back on cussing at home purely for the sake of his kids, but what he was seeing was just too much for him to handle.

Regardless of the fact that she was twenty-four years-old and a criminal profiler in-training, Bekah was always going to be Puck’s little sister—the annoying little brat that would wake him up by using him as a human trampoline. So seeing her sitting on top of the washing machine with her skirt pushed up around her hips with her legs wrapped around fucking _Sam Evans’s_ waist? Yeah, it’s safe to assume that “pissed off beyond all fucking reason” was the understatement of the millennia.

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!” Puck roared, clamping his eyes shut and covering them with his hands.

“Noah, Noah, please, we just—”

“Dude, it’s just that we—”

“BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP AND DON’T TALK UNTIL I HAVE ONE OF MY KIDS IN MY HANDS! ISAIAH!”

Furious at the expectation of Jonny running around and squealing the f-bomb, Rachel stomped into the laundry room and stopped in her tracks when she saw Bekah and Sam readjusting their clothes and blushing. She barely registered Isaiah brushing past her to climb up into his dad’s arms and that everyone was converging behind her.

“Oh. My. God. Beks has gone and gotten herself a piece of White Chocolate,” Mercedes laughed.

“I knew it,” Brittany breathed.

“Oh, thank _God_!” Aviva cheered.

“I don’t understand how you fools didn’t see this coming. I didn’t even need my law degree to figure that out,” Santana scoffed, flouncing back toward the living room. “Hummel, you owe me fifty bucks.”

“Oh, dude,” Mike chuckled at Sam. “You better have a good explanation for this.”

Sam shot Mike a _for-the-love-of-God-please-help-me_ look, but when he was met with a smirk and shrug, he turned back to Puck. “Look, Puck—”

“No, no, I don’t even wanna know. You know what I want? I want Clorox and a broadsword. I want Clorox to pour into my skull and a broadsword to vertically cut you in _half_. My _sister_? Are you for real? My _sister_? Bekah?! She’s, like, twenty years younger than you!”

“Five!” Bekah shrieked.

“And she’s my _sister_! Isn’t there a code against this?! That little sisters are off limits?! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?! I’m about to have an aneurysm right now! I’m gonna keel over in T-minus ten seconds! My children are about to witness the untimely demise of their father! Are you happy?!”

“Oh, my God. Rachel’s melodramatic tendencies are rubbing off,” Tina muttered. ****

“I’m not going to freak out,” Rachel said evenly, holding her hands up and taking deep breaths with her eyes closed. “I am going to stand here and calmly ask what in the _world_ possessed you two to engage in such activities in my laundry room and I will then ask exactly _where_ this buffoonery happened, so I know where to focus my disinfectant.”

“Just do it everywhere, baby. Disinfect the friggin’ walls. It’s just— _ugh_ ,” Puck muttered, shuddering and turning away.

Blaine cleared his throat and pushed his way to the front and started ushering everyone but Puck, Rachel, Bekah, and Sam out of the laundry room and back out to the living room. “Okay, okay, show’s over. Let’s let leave the new couple with the firing squad. Come on, _shoo._ ”

They really didn’t need to grumble about it, though. Because once again, Puckleberry displayed their amazing projection skills. Everyone could _still_ hear “NOT KOSHER, EVANS! NOT KOSHER!” from the kitchen and the living room as if the fight was happening right in front of them.

“I FULLY SUPPORT THIS WONDERFUL RELATIONSHIP—”

_“RACHEL!”_

“—BUT I DO _NOT_ APPRECIATE MY LAUNDRY ROOM BEING DEFILED BY ANYONE ELSE!”

The gleeks burst out laughing at the fact that she basically just announced she and Puck pretty much used the laundry room for the same purpose as Sam and Bekah. Honestly, it was already common knowledge that Puck and Rachel had defiled every surface of the house itself anyway, but no one really wanted to think about that. Especially the ones who were sitting down on the couch.

“ _So_ , Quinn, how is John?” Kurt asked, trying to distract everyone.

Quinn tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. “He’s great. He’s sorry he couldn’t come today because he had a wedding booked, but his pictures are really getting out there, you know? Being a photographer is a lot harder than it looks sometimes, so I’m really proud of him.”

“It also helps that he’s got such a gorgeous actress for a model,” Tina said, rubbing Quinn’s back and making the blonde blush.

“How about you?” Quinn asked Tina and Mike. “How are the twins?”

Mike let out a breath. “Thank God Tina and I thought to use that chalkboard paint Kurt told us about because those two keep drawing all over my walls. It’s driving me nuts.”

“We’re so proud that they’re drawing so well at such a young age, but this is getting ridiculous,” Tina said, holding up the back of her phone to show everyone the cartoon eye sketched in Sharpie.

“They even drew on my back once when I made the mistake of falling asleep on the couch while wearing a white shirt,” Mike said, grimacing.

“I called it,” Brittany said, leaning against her wife.

Santana shook her head and smiled. “My baby’s a genius.”

“How ‘bout you, ‘Cedes?” Mike asked. “You, Shane, and Devin doing well?”

“Oh, my God, that child,” Mercedes laughed. “He started singing ‘Man in the Mirror’ when I was giving him a bath the other day. I flipped. It was all gibberish, but my baby can _sing._ Rory heard him, right?”

Rory grinned and nodded. “Yeah, he and my little Anna tried doing a duet even!”

“But Anna’s _two_!” Quinn said. “She knows ‘Man in the Mirror’ already?”

“I said _‘tried,’_ Q,” Rory answered with a pointed look. “Devin sang; Anna screamed.”

“Oh, God,” Santana said. “We’re gonna end up assembling our own little glee club.”

“Who do you think will be lead?” Tina asked, actually liking the idea.

“The eldest out of the next generation, I guess,” Finn said, motioning toward Will and Emma. “Gavin.”

“No, no, no, the poor thing’s too shy to sing outside of his room,” Emma laughed.

“We’ll get him out of his shell soon enough,” Will said reassuringly, beaming with pride.

“Isaiah!” Jonny announced proudly.

Blaine nodded solemnly. “I don’t know about Jonny, and we won’t know for a while with Caroline, but Isaiah’s showing the music genes he got from both sides of the family.”

“The boy leaves the Broadway to his mother, but he’s really leaning toward the Michael Bublé,” Kurt said, nodding along with his fiancé.

“But this one can act, though,” Artie said, ruffling Jonny’s hair. “I’ve asked Rachel and Puck if I could borrow him for a commercial.”

“FIVE MONTHS?! THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR FIVE MONTHS AND YOU NEVER TOLD ME?! WHAT THE FRICK, EVANS?!” Puck bellowed.

“Daddy, stop screaming!” Isaiah screeched.

“But Uncle Sammy is being mean, Isaiah!” Puck cried defensively.

“Uncle Sammy, be nice!” Isaiah barked.

“Your brother is so awesome, Jon,” Rory said.

Jonny just shrugged and threw his football at Finn’s head again. “He’s badass.”

“Jonny!” Emma admonished.

“Don’t bother,” Shelby said. “That was probably the kid’s first word.”

“Actually, it was just _ass_ ,” Hiram sighed. “You can imagine Rachel’s reaction.”

“NOAH!” Rachel shrieked.

Rory laughed. “Much like _that_ , I’m sure.”

Meanwhile, inside the laundry room, Puck was pacing back and forth so quickly that Isaiah was swaying with a grimace.

“Noah, just stop for a second!” Bekah cried, running her hands through her hair. Sam rubbed her back reassuringly. “Sam’s not just _your_ best friend, okay?”

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked, her hands on her hips.

“Ever since you guys went off to New York, Sam and I have kept in touch. When I got into college myself, he was there for me to talk to about my problems.”

“I could’ve been there for you too!” Puck interrupted.

“And me!” Rachel cried.

“But you two were so busy being wrapped up in each other! And Sam was always _there_! He was always available to chat on Facebook or whatever, so it was just easier for me to go to him,” Bekah explained. “Eventually, things just started to shift between us.”

“Eventually? What is _eventually_? Give me specific times, Rebekah,” Puck growled.

“Daddy, be cool,” Isaiah reminded his father gently.

Puck took a breath and waited for Bekah’s response.

She gulped. “Well, I’d always had a crush on Sam, so…”

Puck’s attention then swiveled to Sam. Now he kinda knew how Finn felt when Babygate blew up. Well…sort of. “And what’s your story?”

“Come on, Puck,” Sam said with a knowing look. “You know your sister, and you know me. When my mom kept harassing me to find someone and settle down, I had to think about what I wanted in a girl, and when I did, I ended up with a list describing Bekah. I mean, think about it, dude.”

And so Puck thought about it. And it made sense. In between all the Justice League marathons, _Avatar_ nerd-outs, and analyze-Puck’s-ulterior-motives sessions, they just clicked. A _lot_ more than Puck ever wanted to admit.

And Sam could totally tell that Puck knew.

 “FINE!” Puck finally roared. “BUT YOU TWO AIN’T GOIN’ _NOWHERE_ WITHOUT A CHAPERONE! And you are _totally_ babysitting for _life_! Both of y’all! You’ll be paying me back ‘til the day you die! I’m traumatized, Rebekah! TRAUMATIZED!”

The door suddenly banged open and Puck stomped out, still clutching Isaiah to his chest. Bekah and Sam followed him with small, sheepish smiles as they held hands. Rachel made a beeline for the kitchen and emerged with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

“I guess congratulations are in order?” Artie asked, smiling hesitantly as Rachel poured herself and Puck a drink.

“Thanks, dude,” Sam said, bumping fists with all the guys.

“Oh, I’m so happy!” Aviva gushed, grabbing Sam and kissing his cheeks.

“B-But I’m not Jewish,” Sam pointed out, glancing at Bekah worriedly.

“Your name is Samuel, and you lived with us for almost a year,” Aviva said decisively, smacking his cheek. “You’re Jewish.”

“Brittany, can I have Caroline?” Bekah asked, grimacing at the dark, dark look she was receiving from her big brother.

“Don’t you use my daughter as a shield,” Puck growled, hugging Isaiah even closer.

“Daddy, you’re squishing Isaiah,” Jonny said, frowning at the grimace on his little brother’s face.

“I think it’s cute,” Brittany said matter-of-factly, shifting Caroline in her arms to ruffle Sam’s hair.

“Brit, you think Venus fly traps are cute,” Puck grumbled.

“Their heads are so small and bouncy,” Brittany countered. “Besides, I’d want Monica with Chandler instead of that creeper with the mustache.”

 _“What?”_ Will asked, squinting in confusion.

“Chandler is Ross’s best friend, and Monica is Ross’s little sister,” Rachel explained, having mastered Brittany-speak ever since the blonde had moved in with Santana six years prior. “Brittany is merely trying to illustrate that the best friend dating the little sister is preferable because the older brother at least knows very well who his sister is dating. _Right, Noah?_ ”

“Whatever,” Puck mumbled darkly. “Having a _nun_ for a sister is preferable.”

“All right, that’s it!” Bekah snapped, glaring at her brother and jumping to her feet.

Puck surged up, still clutching Isaiah. “What’chu be startin’, huh?!”

Rachel just shook her head and sighed.

“CHASE.”

No one but Puck, Rachel, Hiram, Leroy, and Aviva knew what the name meant, but it was fairly obvious that Puck didn’t like it _at all_. Judging from the visible tick in his jaw and the intensity of the glares they were throwing at each other, Chase was a _very, very_ touchy subject.

“Which is it, Noah?” Bekah growled. “Chase or Sam?”

Puck held on for as long as he could, Rachel had to give him that. The man was stubborn as all get-out, but he also knew when to admit defeat.

Puck slumped back onto the couch and scowled at Sam as Rachel smiled and rubbed Puck’s shoulders comfortingly. “Welcome to the family, Evans. You break my sister’s heart, and your existence will be wiped off the face of the earth not an hour after. You get me? And you _still_ owe me bad.”

Santana grinned evilly and leaned down to Bekah and said, “If you want, I can sing ‘Trouty Mouth’ at y’all’s wedding.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Sam said, pushing Santana away. “Just _no_.”

“CAN WE EAT NOW?!” Finn cried as the soccer ball collided with his head for the eighth time in the last two minutes.

“Yeah, Finnessa’s sympathetic pregnancy’s been kicking in lately,” Santana chortled.

Finn stood up and followed the crowd to the buffet line in the kitchen. He threw his arm around Santana’s shoulders and squeezed her a little tighter than necessary. “Yeah, I _really_ haven’t missed you much, Santana.”

“You love me, Michelin,” she scoffed, reaching back and smacking his ass. “And don’t deny the hormones. Accept them.”

“Brittany, you can give me Caroline now,” Rachel said, holding her hands out for her daughter.

“Nope,” Brittany answered with a smile. “She’s mine.”

“Brit, what is your attachment to the baby?” Mercedes asked, spooning lasagna onto her plate.

“The mere fact that it’s a baby,” Beth spoke up for the blonde.

“So you did something nice for all the gleeks, right?” Emma asked Puck once they were all reassembled in the living room with their food.

He nodded through a forkful of fettuccini.

“What was Brittany’s favor?” Sam asked, the thought finally occurring to him.

“Yeah, you’ve done something for pretty much everyone. You even saved Rory from being mauled at Macy’s that one time, so he ended up writing himself into the list,” Bekah added.

“I can never thank you enough for that,” Rory said, saluting Puck.

“Well, it was all Brit’s idea, so I guess she didn’t need to be on the list?” Quinn asked, glancing around at the fellow former-OTBJP operatives. “Right?”

Brittany suddenly threw her head back and laughed, making Caroline crack a toothless smile. “You guys are so dumb.”

Puck smirked as he helped Isaiah cut up his chicken patty. “They’re not as smart as you, Brit. It’s not their fault.”

“Well?” Santana prompted, irritated that even _she_ didn’t know. “What was it?”

Rachel smiled and hugged Jonny closer on her lap as he ate his burger. Puck grinned at her and winked as Brittany squeezed the baby just a little tighter.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Brittany asked, beaming at her family. “Pucklebabies.”

**_THE END_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to close by touching on a few bases here. One: Juilliard doesn't have a musical theater program. Hence Kurt and Rachel's new dreams of NYADA. But it's a fucking fictional school. Just...no. Now Juilliard has a drama and a music program, and I think it's stupid that they don't have a musical theater program, so in my fic, there will be a musical theater program. Made especially for Rachel Berry. Suck it, bitches. Two, initially it was going to be a Fabrevans endgame, but Bekah grew on me. I don't know. It just came out of nowhere, and so I decided to roll with it purely because of its stressing-out-Puck potential. And three, Pitbull and Gloria Estefan made a cameo appearance in Chapter 12, and I'm surprised no one said a thing! Anyway, thank you so much for everyone who's followed this. I've loved and appreciated all your support!

**Author's Note:**

> “So Close” is the one-shot that started this foolishness. You can read it if you like, but it’s not necessary. I reference it probably a grand total of three times in this fic, so it’s not a prologue or a prequel or whatever.  
> Because I’m in complete denial that…that…that…  
> I can’t even say it.  
> Sam will remain at McKinley. He did not leave. He did not go anywhere. He is still a main character—not a “guest star” or a “recently let-go former cast member.” And because of this and the fact that the season premiere is coming up and God only knows what Ryan Murphy’s gonna do next, this fic will officially become AU as of…whenever the premiere is.


End file.
